H E 



Y 1 

Old Meeting-House 
Hingham 

200 ™ Anniversary 



[Ills] 










Presented by the Parish. 



THE 



COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES 



THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM 

ON THE 

TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BUILDING 
OF ITS MEETING-HOUSE. 



J . - -« 







THE 



COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES 



OF 



THE FIRST PARISH IN IIINGHAM 



dLXwo ©tmtjretrtl) amutoersarp 



THE BUILDING OF ITS MEETING-HOUSE. 



Monday, August 8, 1881. 




H INGHAM : 
PUBLISHED BY THE PARISH. 

1882. 



X<\ 







University Press: 
I hn Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



CONTENTS. 



Prclimtrumj procccihngs. 

P AG 1 

Parish Meetings 3 

Committees 5 

Invitations 6 

Commcmoratioc J&ertrice*, 

Decorations 1 1 

Memorial Tablet' 12 

Guests 13 

Morning Exercises. 

Address of Welcome of Mr. Arthur Lincoln .... 14 

Invocation of Rev. Edward A. Horton 18 

Reading of the Scriptures by Rev. Henry A. Mii.es. D.D. 20 

Eighty-fourth Psalm 22 

Prayer of Rev. Calvin Lincoln 23 

Address of Mr. Charles Eliot Norton 29 

Poem of Mr. Richard Henry Stoddard 62 

Benediction of Rev. William I. Nichols 64 

Ifternoon Exercises. 

Prayer of Rey. Joseph Osgood 65 

Address of Rev. Edward A. Hortjdn 67 

Address or Rev. Edward J. Young 79 



VI THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

Page 

Address of Hon. Marshall P. Wilder 93 

Address of Governor Long 97 

Address of Hon. Robert R. Bishop 106 

Letter and Poem of Rev. James Freeman Clarke, D.D. 112 

Address of Rev. Joseph Osgood 113 

Address of Hon. George B. Loring 120 

Address of Rev. Eben Francis 125 

Address of Hon. Thomas Russell 132 

Address of Rev. Lewis B. Bates 137 

Address of Mr. Hosea H. Lincoln 140 

Hymn of Mr. James Humphrey Wilder 147 

Benediction of Rev. Calvin Lincoln 148 



(lorrcsponDcncc, 

Mr. Norton's Letter of Acceptance 153 

Letters 153 

^ppcnirix. 

The First Meeting-House 161 

The Ministers 162 

Invitation 163 

Invitation to the "Old Choir" 164 

Order of Exercises 165 

Members of the "Old Choir" 168 

Ushers 169 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page 
View of the Meeting-House, from a photograph taken by 

Baldwin Coolidge, of Boston Frontispiece 

Portrait of Rev. Calvin Lincoln, from a photograph taken 

by Allen & Rowell, of Boston 23 



The Illustrations are printed by the Heliotype Printing 
Company, of Boston. 



Committee on publication. 

Arthur Lincoln. Quincy Bicknell. 

Henry C. Harding. Francis H. Lincoln. 



PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.' 



PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 



HP] IK frame of the "OLD MEETING-HOUSE " in Hing- 
-*- ham was raised on the twenty- sixth, twenty-seventh, 
and twenty-eighth days of July, 1681, and the house was 
completed, and opened for public worship, Jan. 8, 1681-2, 
Old Style. It was the second house erected for the pur- 
pose of public worship within the territorial limits of I ling- 
ham, including Cohasset. It was built by the town before 
it was divided into parishes. It is believed that no house 
for public worship exists, within the limits of the United 
States, which continues to be used for the purpose for 
which it was erected, and remaining on the same site where 
it was built, which is so old as this. 

It had long been concluded, in the minds of those most 
interested in the house and its history, that there should 
be some appropriate observance of the approaching Two 
Hundredth Anniversary of its erection, and formal ac- 
tion was first taken at the annual meeting of the Parish, on 
March 21, 1881. 

At this meeting, Hon. STARKES Whitox, Moderator, on 
motion of Mr. QuiNCY BlCKXELL, it was 

Voted, "That the Parish take suitable action to celebrate 
the two hundredth anniversary of the building and open- 
ing of the Meeting-house." 



4 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

A committee, consisting of 

Rev. Calvin Lincoln, Quincy Bicknell, 

Arthur Lincoln, Henry C. Harding, 

Ebed L. Ripley, Fearing Burr, 

E. Waters Burr, Luther Stephenson, Jr., 

Henry Stephenson, William Fearing, 2d, 
Charles B. W. Lane, 

was chosen " to take into consideration the question of the 
observance of the two hundredth anniversary of the build- 
ing and opening of the Meeting-house, and to report a 
plan at an adjourned meeting." 

This Committee met, and after deliberation adopted the 
following " Report," which was submitted to the Parish at 
the adjourned meeting on April 25, 1881. 



REPORT. 

The Committee appointed by the Parish " to take into 
consideration the question of the observance of the two 
hundredth anniversary of the building and opening of 
the Meeting-house, and to report a plan," respectfully 
report : — 

That they have considered the matter referred to them 
and make the following recommendations : — 

I. That there be services in commemoration of the build- 
ing of the Meeting-house, on Thursday, July 28, 1881. 

That the exercises consist of an address and proper re- 
ligious services, with music, in the forenoon ; a collation 
for invited guests at noon; and various addresses and 
music in the afternoon. 

That the collation be provided for invited guests to the 
number of one hundred ; that a caterer be employed, and 
that he have the privilege of providing entertainment for 
such others as may desire it. 



PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 5 

That the music of the various periods since the erection 
of the Meeting-house be introduced during the exercises, 
viz. : — 

1. The "deaconing" of the hymn and the "raising of 
the tune," with singing by the congregation. 

2. The use of various musical instruments in connection 
with a large choir. 

3. The use of the organ, with a quartette choir. 

That a suitable programme of the exercises be printed. 

II. That there be religious services in commemoration 
of the opening of the Meeting-house, on Sunday, Jan. 8, 

1882. 

III. That there be suitable decorations of the Meeting- 
house upon the occasion first named, to remain until after 
the anniversary in January. 

For the Committee, 

Arthur Lincoln, Cliairman. 

This report was accepted by the Parish, and a Committee 
was chosen " to carry out the recommendations contained 
in the report." 

The following named gentlemen were chosen this Com- 
mittee: — 

Rev. Calvin Lincoln. Henry Stephknson. 

OUINCY BlCKNELL. HENRY C. HARDING. 

Fearing Burr. Luther Stephenson, Jr. 

Arthur Lincoln. William Fearing, 2d. 

Ebed L. Ripley. George Lincoln. 

E. Waters Burr. Starkes Wiiiton. 

Charles B. W. Lane. Francis H. Lincoln. 

Several ladies were subsequently added to this Com- 
mittee. 



6 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

At a subsequent meeting of the Parish it was thought 
best to take into account the change in the calendar to 
New Style, and the day of commemoration was accord- 
ingly changed to Monday, Aug. 8, 1881. 

This Committee of Arrangements organized by the 
choice of Mr. Arthur Lincoln as Chairman (Rev. 
Calvin Lincoln declining), and Mr. Henry C. Hard- 
ing as Secretary and Treasurer. Meetings were held 
from time to time during the spring and summer. 

The following sub-committees were appointed : — 

On Speakers and Order of Exeirises. 

Rev. Calvin Lincoln. Arthur Lincoln. 

Henry C. Harding. Fearing Burr. 

OUINCY BlCKNELL. E. WATERS BURR. 

On Music. 

Francis H. Lincoln. William Fearing, 2d. 

On Decorations. 

Starkes Whiton. Ebed L. Ripley. 

Charles B. W. Lane. 

On Collation. 
Ebed L. Ripley. William Fearing, 2d. 

Henry Stephenson. 

On Invitations and Printing. 

Arthur Lincoln. George Lincoln. 

Ouincy Bicknell. Henry C. Harding. 

The Committee, recognizing the fact that it would afford 
universal gratification if the Minister, Rev. CALVIN LIN- 
COLN, could deliver the principal address, invited him to 
do so, but he felt compelled to decline on account of his 
age. 

They invited Mr. CHARLES Eliot NORTON, a lineal de- 
scendant from Rev. John NORTON, the second minister of 
the Church, under whose ministry the Meeting-house was 



PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 7 

erected, to deliver the address in the forenoon, and were 
fortunate in receiving a cordial acceptance from him. 
They were pleased also in obtaining from Air. RICHARD 
HENRY STODDARD, a native of Hingham, a promise to 
read a poem on the occasion. 

Other gentlemen, who were especially connected with 
the Parish, or descendants from those who built the Meet- 
ing-house, some of whom represented the different re- 
ligious organizations in the town, which had gone out 
from this old Parish, were invited to make* remarks in the 
afternoon. 

Invitations to be present at the commemorative services 
were sent to the Governor of Massachusetts, the Mayor of 
Boston, the President of Harvard University, the principal 
Town Officers of Hingham and of Cohasset (formerly the 
"Second Precinct" of Hingham), the clergymen of Hing- 
ham and of Cohasset, ministers of churches older than 
the Church in Hingham, and to many other ministers, 
prominent citizens, and antiquaries. Cordial invitations 
to the other parishes in town were also read from the pul- 
pits. In sending special invitations the Committee sought 
to include those who were descended from ancestors who 
built the Meeting-house, or who had worshipped within 
its walls. 

The Committee adopted a different plan from that rec- 
ommended in the report as to the collation. They pro- 
vided for an unlimited number of guests, and extended a 
cordial invitation to all. 

The Committee on Music organized a large chorus of 
mixed voices, with an orchestra, and invited all those, old 
and young, who had ever sat in the " singing seats," to 
join. The choir was under the direction of Mr. LUTHER 
STEPHENSON, Sr. (the oldest of the choristers living), 
with Mr. ISRAEL Whitcomb as leading tenor. 

Mr. SIDNEY SpRAGUE, who had played upon the flute 
for thirty-six years in the Meeting-house, and Mr. DAVID 



8 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

A. HERSEY, who had played upon the bass-viol there for 
nearly half a century, were in the orchestra. 

This "Old Choir" had several rehearsals in the Meet- 
ing-house. They were fully attended and created much 
enthusiasm among those who were preparing for the anni- 
versary. Much credit is due to Mr. STEPHENSON for the 
zeal with which he inspired the chorus, and for their ef- 
fective singing. It proved a very interesting feature of the 
commemorative services. 



COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 



COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 



THE early morning of Aug. 8, 1881, the day appointed 
for the Commemorative Services, was somewhat cool. 
Rains had recently fallen, and the skies were still partially 
clouded. The effect of this was to deter some from vent- 
uring abroad; but the day was most comfortable for those 
who attended the services, and the Meeting-house was 
filled to its utmost capacity from the beginning to the 
end of the day. It had been a wet season, and the coun- 
try and grounds about the Meeting-house looked as green 
as on a day in June, and, as the skies cleared, seemed to 
grow more and more in beauty, even to the last rays of 
the setting sun. It proved to be a perfect summer's day. 

The interior of the Meeting-house had been simply but 
tastefully adorned by the Committee on Decorations. They 
had wisely determined not to cover the walls with elaborate 
decoration, in order that the quaint architecture of the 
building might be more easily seen. Baskets of flowers 
were hung in front of the supporting columns of the gal- 
leries, and distributed in various parts of the house. Fes- 
toons of green were arranged with excellent effect about 
the pulpit and around the clock; and, prominent and per- 
tinent to the occasion, on cither side of the communion 
table were two large century plants, typical of the age of 
the building. Upon the east gallery front was a shield 
bearing the device, " Norton, 1681," with a crown. On 
the opposite gallery, another shield bearing the name of 



12 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

" Lincoln, 1881," with a shepherd's staff. Alas ! how soon 
the Pastor was to lay down the staff and wear the crown. 1 

The Parish Committee had caused to be placed upon the 
wall at the left of the pulpit, in conformity with a vote of 
the parish, as a permanent memorial, a tablet of brass, set 
in mahogany, and lettered in antique style, with the follow- 
ing inscription : — 

"Let the Work of our Fathers stand." 

ministers. 

Peter Hobart 1635 — 1678-9 

John Norton 1678 — 1716 

Ebenezer Gay 1718 — 1787 

Henry Ware 1787— 1805 

Joseph Richardson 1806 — 1871 

Calvin Lincoln 1855 — 

Edwd. Augustus Horton 1877 — 1S80 

TEACHER. 
Robert Peck 1638 — 1641 

This Church was gathered in 1635. The frame of this Meet- 
ing-house was raised on the twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, and 
twenty-eighth days of July, 1681, and the house was completed 
and opened for public worship on the eighth day of January, 
1 681-2. It cost the town ,£430 and the old house. 



Upon either side of this tablet hung portraits of Rev. 
EBENEZER Gay, D.D., third minister of the church, and of 
Rev. Calvin Lincoln. 

The morning trains and boats brought many guests to 
town, and at ten o'clock the doors of the Meeting-house 

1 On Thursday, Sept. 8, r88l, the day appointed by the Governor for 
prayers for President Garfield, Mr. Lincoln, standing in the same place from 
which he had offered prayer at these commemorative services, and while in 
the act of praying for the recovery of the wounded President, was stricken 
with paralysis, and died on the following Sunday morning. 



COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES. 



*3 



were thrown open. The house had been placed in charge 
of Mr. E. WATERS BURR, who was assisted by a compe- 
tent corps of ushers, and all who came were quietly and 
quickly shown to seats. The centre of the house was re- 
served for invited guests and for the more aged and infirm. 
Upon the platform in front of the pulpit sat the Chairman 
of the Committee of Arrangements, — 

Mr. Arthur Lincoln, who presided. 

At his right sat, — 

Mr. Charles Eliot Norton, the Orator of the day. 

Mr. Richard Henr\ St ard, the Poet. 

His Excellency John D. Long, Governor of Massachusetts. 
Hon. Robert R. Bishop, President of the Senate. 

Hon. Marshall P. Wilder. Rev. Edward J. Young. 

Hon. George B. Loring. Rev. Eben Francis. 

Hon. Thomas Russell. Rev. Lewis B. Bates. 

Rev. Henry A. Miles, D.I). Mr. Hosea H. Lincoln. 
Rev. Rufus P. Stebbins, D.D. 

At the left of the Chairman sat, — 

Rev. Calvin Lincoln, the Minister. 

Rev. Joseph Osgood, the Minister of the First Parish in Cohasset. 
Rev. Edward A. Horton, formerly Associate Pastor of the Parish. 
Mr. Henry C. Harding, Secretary of the Committee of Arrange- 
ments, and Parish Clerk. 

The front pews were occupied by other clergymen of 
Hingham. 



MORNING EXERCISES. 



AFTER an Organ Voluntary by Mr. ALFRED H. BlS- 
SELL, the Organist of the Church, the exercises be- 
gan precisely at eleven o'clock, the hour fixed, with a "Te 
Deum in B-minor," by B?ick. This was sung by a quar- 
tette composed of Miss Annie Louise Gage, soprano; 
Mrs. Jennie M. Noyes, contralto; Mr. William H. Fes- 
senden, tenor; and Mr. Clarence E. Hay, bass. 

The Address of Welcome was then delivered by Mr. 
Arthur Lincoln. 

address of mr. arthur lincoln. 

Two hundred years ago this day our fathers 
raised the frame of this Meeting-house. Two hun- 
dred years ! Not long to one who stands beneath 
the domes of those old cathedrals of England from 
whence these same fathers came. Not long to one 
who reads the rise and fall of races. It seems but 
a leaf in the pages of history. And to one who 
measures nature's vast creations, or tracks the comet 
in its eternal flight, it is but a span. And yet, as 
we look about us and see how little there is of age 
in the land, how like a patriarch this old frame 



MORNING EXERCISES. 1 5 

stands amidst all else that is so fresh and new, these 
two hundred years seem ages. 

Picture to yourselves the scene when this work 
began. The hill-tops were covered with primeval 
forests, and the meadows were but just broken by 
the settler's ploughshare. There were no great 
thoroughfares, but yonder led the trail through the 
woods to the settlement of the Pilgrims at Ply- 
mouth. The colonists, living in rude log cabins 
with thatched roofs, still missed the comforts of the 
homes they had left behind. They had not for- 
gotten the oppression which drove them from their 
native land, for Charles Second had been restored 
to the throne of England, and, by his attempted in- 
fringements on New England's charter, fanned the 
fires which were still burning in their breasts. 
Scarcely less than the burdens which they had left 
behind were the perils they encountered before. 
The desolating war of King Philip had but just 
closed. The palisado about the first meeting-house, 
the three forts, and garrison houses, reminded them 
of the clangers to which they were exposed ; for the 
Indian still lurked with his tomahawk behind the 
trees and tracked his game across the white man's 
path, and the same bell which summoned the wor- 
shipper to the house of God, startled the wild beast 
from his lair. 

But amid all these perils they did not forget the 
object for which they crossed the water, — freedom 
to worship God; and as the settler> increased in 



l6 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

numbers, and the old house became too small for 
its company of worshippers, they raised this new 
Meeting-house. They built no gorgeous temple, 

no 

" Long-drawn aisle and fretted vault," 

but a plain, simple structure of rough-hewn oak, 
as you see. And here it has stood and here it 
stands to-dav. Two hundred winters' snows, two 
hundred summers' suns, have beat upon its walls, 
but firm as a rock it stands. The flames have licked 
and even charred its sides, yet its timbers remain 
unharmed. In it were first heard the prayers of the 
devout Norton; and from this very pulpit, just one 
hundred years ago this month, the venerable Gay 
preached the " Old Man's Calendar," which met 
with so much favor that it was reprinted not only 
in this country, but in England and in Holland, 
being translated into the Dutch language; and to- 
day we listen to the voice of one, who, in the eighty- 
second year of his age, himself a direct descendant 
from the first minister, Peter Hobart. still teaches 
us lessons of wisdom and love. 

But it is not sentiment alone which calls us 
together on this anniversary, though it would be 
well if that were sufficient reason to our matter-of- 
fact and practical minds ; we need more of it. Nei- 
ther is it with the curiosity of the antiquary, to hear 
some new fact or to look upon this rude architec- 
ture ; for, even in its quaintness, Professor Norton 
will tell you, it affords little of interest for " Histori- 



MORNINC EXERCISES. 



17 



cal Studies of Church-building." No, it is rather in 
love for these forefathers of ours who built this 
house, and those who have worshipped in it, and in 
affectionate regard for their memories. We have 
come together to recount their virtues, which, like 
leaven in the mass, have pervaded this land, — to 
talk of their independence, their perseverance, their 
courage, their faith ; to hear again the story of 
their deeds, that we, in turn, may — 

"... tell them to our sons, 
And they again to theirs, 
That generations yet unborn 

May teach them to their heirs." 

In the name then of this old Parish, in the name 
of its revered Minister, whose presence is in itself 
a benediction, I welcome you most cordially to this 
hallowed place. We welcome His Excellency, the 
Governor, not alone as the representative of this 
great Commonwealth, which recognizing no Estab- 
lished Church has nurtured and cherished them all, 
but as our honored neighbor and friend. We wel- 
come the chief magistrates of this ancient town of 
Hingham, whose existence is coeval with our own, 
and which for more than a century held its town- 
meetings exclusively in this house ; and the magis- 
trates of our neighboring town of Cohasset, which 
we recognize to-day only as the " Second Precinct " 
of Hingham, which, like another Eve torn from our 
very ribs, has for these more than one hundred years 



l8 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

stood by our side a beauteous handmaiden. We 
welcome the Minister of the Second Church in 
Boston, who returns to us again to-day ; and our 
distinguished guest, who is to address us this morn- 
ing, — a lineal descendant, in the fifth generation, of 
that same Norton under whose ministry this house 
was built. We welcome all the parishes which have 
gone out from us, and all the descendants of these 
worthy forefathers. We welcome you all most cor- 
dially. We extend to you to-day, not simply the 
right hand of fellowship, but we open wide our 
arms to receive you as a mother clasps her children 
to her breast. Recalling: together the deeds of those 
who sleep on yonder hill, we can but gather inspira- 
tion for the work which lies before. 

An Invocation was then offered by Rev. Edward A. 
HORTON, Minister of the Second Church in Boston, for- 
merly Associate Pastor of the Parish. 

INVOCATION OF REV. EDWARD A. HORTON. 

Let us invoke the Divine blessing: — 
Almighty and most merciful God, thy spirit is 
here with us as it was with those whom now we 
remember with gratitude, respect, and admiration. 
That spirit which has quickened prophets and 
touched with eloquence the reformer's lips, and 
given truth wings over the world, — that spirit is by 
us to animate our hearts and to tenant our minds, 
and make them populous with noble principles 



MORNING EXERCISES. 19 

and truths. May we open our souls to that spirit 
this morning, and look down the vista of the past, 
and feel as though the dead were alive again, — 
that with luminous and transfigured faces they were 
with us to sing again endeared psalms, to feel again 
the throb of sentiments that are ever true to the 
human heart in all ages and times, and to look 
with us, as we now look, upon principles and 
ideas that have no grave. We thank thee for 
those whom we remember. Our crowns for their 
brows are very small, our words feeble; but there 
are within us sentiments which we cannot express. 
Now to us, Father, give memories dear and delight- 
ful; for even those among the living to-day in this 
assembly know that over these aisles tottering age 
has walked and gone forth refreshed and quickened, 
and the tear-stained cheek of the mourner has 
become radiant with joy and resignation in this 
beloved sanctuary. Over these dear homes and 
this tranquil Christian community the Sunday bell 
has come as sweet music, shaking off fetters and 
emancipating men and women from the labor and 
care of this world. 

O Father, our gratitude is deep, and our prayer 
to thee is that we may be blended lovingly together 
in the exercises of this hour; that we may baptize 
ourselves afresh with noble resolutions, determined, 
ere we pass away, to make some cause for grati- 
tude in the hearts of those who are to come after 
us. We thank thee that for so many years this 



20 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

edifice has been the home of Christianity, — the 
faith that we believe will wield its sceptre eventu- 
ally over the whole world. Pass, Angel of mem- 
ory, thy white pure hand over our hearts; and 
bring, by thy magic touch, before us all that is 
beautiful and pure and noble of the things that are 
eternal and uncrumbling. These blessings now we 
ask as disciples of Jesus Christ : Amen. 

Then followed an Anthem, "Before Jehovah's Awful 
Throne" ("Denmark"). This was sung by the "Old 
Choir," with musical instruments, under the direction of 
Mr. Luther Stephenson, Sr. 

The names of the persons composing this choir appear 
in the Appendix. They sat in the gallery opposite the 
pulpit. The singing was illustrative of the musical ser- 
vice eighty years and more ago, and which prevailed in this 
church until quite recent times. 

The strains of "Denmark," as the choir began, were truly 
inspiring, and the whole congregation rose to their feet. 

Rev. Henry A. Miles, D.D., Minister of the Third 
Congregational Society, then read, from the pulpit, the 
following Selections from the Scriptures. 

READING OF THE SCRIPTURES, BY REV. HENRY 
A. MILES, D.D. 

Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, who put it into their 
hearts to build a house to the God of heaven. 

Lo, we thought of it in the fields of the wood. I will not give 
sleep to mine eyes, nor slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a 
place for the Lord, a habitation for the mighty God, to behold the 
beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. 

They helped every one his neighbor, and every one said to his 
brother, Be of good courage. The carpenter encouraged the smith ; 



MORNING EXERCISES. 2 1 

and he that smoothed with the hammer him that smote the anvil ; 
and it was fastened with nails that it should not be moved. 

So they built a house to the great God, with timber laid in the 
walls, and the work went fast on and prospered in their hands; and 
this is the house that was builded these many years ago. 

Then I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the 
house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates. Lift up 
your heads, () ye gates, and the King of (dory shall come in. 
And the glory of the Lord filled the house of God. 

But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold the heaven, 
and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain him ; how much less 
this house, which was builded with hands. 

Vet thine eyes will be towards the place of which thou hast 
said : My name shall be there. There he will teach us of his 
ways, and we will walk in his paths ; and he will fulfil our petitions 
and grant according to our hearts ; send us help from the sanctuary, 
and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord. 

Behold one generation shall praise thy works to another, and 
instead of the fathers shall be the children. Who saw this house 
in its first glory? The fashion of the world passeth away. The 
grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth ; but the word of 
the Lord endureth forever. 

After the manner which some call heresy, so worship I the God 
of my fathers, and have hope towards God which they also them- 
selves look for. 

For there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit ; and there 
are differences of administration, but the same Lord ; and there 
are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who worketh 
all in all. 

Some preach Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of 
good will. What then? Notwithstanding, every way Christ is 
preached ; and therein do I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. 

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God? As God hath said, 
I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, 
and they shall be my people. 

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that 
ye present yourselves a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto 
God, which is your reasonable service. 

That ye may be built as living stones, polished after the simili- 



22 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

tude of a palace, upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone, in whom the 
whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which 
every joint supplieth, may grow unto a habitation of God ; through 
him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 

What we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us, 
we will not hide from our children ; that the generation to come 
might know them, even the children which may be born ; who shall 
arise and declare them to their children that they may set their 
hope in God. 

I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear 
them now. The spirit which my Father will send unto you shall 
teach you further things. I count not myself to have apprehended ; 
but this one thing I do, — forgetting those things which are behind 
and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on- 
ward towards the goal of an upward calling of God. 

Peace be within these walls. For my brethren and companions' 
sake I will now say, Peace be unto thee. Because of the house of 
the Lord our God, I will seek thy good. 

Then followed the singing of the Eighty-fourth Psalm, 
to the tune of " St. Martin's," by the congregation. 

This Psalm was first read by Rev. Edward C. Hood, 
Minister of the Evangelical Congregational Society. Mr. 
Francis H. Lincoln then " raised the tune " by means of 
a "pitch-pipe" which he had secured for the occasion, 
and, after the manner of our fathers, "lined off" five 
stanzas of the Psalm, which were sung line by line after 
him. 

PSALM LXXXIV. 

From Psalms, Hymns, & Spiritual Songs of the Old & New Testaments, 
faithfully translated into English Metre for the use, edification & Comfort of 
the Saints in publick & private, especially in New England. 

How amiable Lord of hosts 

thy Tabernacles be ? 
My Soul longs for Jehovah's Courts, 

yea it ev'n faints in me : 




(/} CJtUs-l^l^l <=>L(3L1 ■* < ( ¥ 7 



MORNING EXERCISES. 

Unto the strong and living Clod, 

my heart and flesh do shout, 
Yea, Sparrows finde an house, her nest 

the swallow eke finds out : 

Wherein she may her young ones lay, 

thine altars near unto : 
O thou that art of armies Lord, 

my King, my God also. 

() blest are they within thy house 
who dwell, still they'l thee praise : 

Blest is the man whose strength's in thee. 
in whose heart are their wayes. 

Who as they pass through Baca's Vale 

a fountain do it make 
Also the pools that are therein, 

their fill of rain do take. 

From strength to strength they go : to God, 

in Sion all appear. 
Lord God of hosts, ( ) hear my prayer, 

( ) Jacob's God give ear. 



Rev. CALVIN LINCOLN, the Minister, offered prayer. 



PRAYER OF REV. CALVIN LINCOLN. 

Let us unite in prayer: — 

Almighty and most merciful God, thou art the 
fountain of all wisdom, the creator of all happiness, 
the bestower of all blessings. We bow before thee 
at this time in adoration of thy perfection, in grati- 
tude for thy goodness to past generations, and may 



24 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

it be in a spirit of humble reliance on thee for thy 
guardianship and care. We praise thy name, O 
Father, that we are allowed to witness this occasion, 
that so many who have descended from the fathers, 
who gave their hearts and employed their hands in 
rearing this edifice for thy worship, are allowed 
here to assemble to remember their fidelity, to re- 
vive in their own bosoms the faith that was nour- 
ished by those from whom they have descended. 
We thank thee, gracious Father, for the many great 
and marked events in the worlds history that have 
arisen since these walls were reared ; and especially 
our thoughts are turned to the condition of those 
who were more immediately engaged in this work 
for thy glory and the advancement of the Kingdom 
of thy Son. And while we look back to the home 
of those who had crossed the ocean that here they 
might enjoy freedom for thy worship, we recognize 
the wisdom of thy disciplinary providence, though 
through severe privations and bitter inflictions they 
were tausrht the oreat lessons of man's entire right 
to the exercise of his powers in the service of thee, 
to whom supreme allegiance is ever due. We thank 
thee that this great thought was planted in their 
hearts, that man is the child and the creature of an 
Infinite Father, and that we have no right to bow 
to any human dictation that would separate us 
from entire submission to thy will, which is in har- 
mony always with the law of eternal right. Blessed 
be thy name that our fathers understood and felt 



MORNING EXERCISES. 25 

this great truth, even though they might not per- 
fectly understand its widest applications. It filled 
their souls with energy, it gave them strength and 
courage for effort; and they crossed the ocean, they 
came to these bleak shores, they erected their rude 
habitations and here they dwelt ; but they brought 
with them a lofty aim, a noble purpose ; they designed 
to secure freedom for thy worship, to establish the 
Church of thy Son on the foundation of prophets 
and apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief 
corner-stone. Here they came with a design of secur- 
ing not a blind homage ; but they reared institutions 
for the education of the young, they sought that 
their posterity should be enlightened, that they 
should be a law-abiding people ; and we thank thee, 
O Father, that it was to carry forward these great 
and glorious designs that these walls were reared. 
And we bless thy name for all the interesting ser- 
vice which they have rendered for the benefit of our 
race. We thank thee that here they came on the 
Lord's Day, and were reminded — and our fathers 
and their descendants even to the present time have 
been reminded — of their obligations to thee and to 
their fellow-men, of the duties which Christianity 
enjoins, and the service which it imposes on us as 
members of society ; and we thank thee for the list 
of intelligent, devoted, holy, educated, and devout 
ministers who have proclaimed thy truth to the 
congregations gathered around them, who have now 
passed on, as we trust, to their heavenly rest. \\ e 



26 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

thank thee also, Heavenly Father, for the lessons 
that have been taught the young ; and thus we have 
secured to ourselves, through the agency of our 
fathers and those who have preceded us, a reverent, 
law-abiding people. We thank thee for the inter- 
esting thoughts associated with this house in refer- 
ence to the civil institutions under which we now 
live. The very spirit that taught our fathers that 
they should not be controlled in religious inquiries 
by human authority, unveiled to them the rights of 
the individual mind ; and thus it was that they were 
led to resist the arm of oppression, and in this house 
and beneath this roof our fathers assembled in 
the great struggle that preceded our independent 
national existence. And at a later period, when the 
great evil that had so long existed, incompatible as 
it was with a republican government, was about to 
pass away, and our soldiers were to go forth — our 
sons and our brothers — to uphold the integrity of 
the nation, then here they assembled and sought the 
guidance and the blessing of the God of armies, the 
God and Father of every one of our race. And, 
Father, we bless thee for all the good that has come 
to us in our civil and our religious relations ; we 
thank thee for the happiness that has been diffused 
through the instrumentality of the institutions of our 
religion, nurturing the gentler avocations, making 
home more sacred, making life more valuable, giving 
to us a prospect of a glorious immortality. And 
now, Father, command thy blessing, we beseech thee, 



MORNING EXERCISES. 2 J 

upon all of us here to-day assembled. Each one 
individually cherishing an interest in this ancient 
edifice, — wilt thou grant to each one thy paternal 
blessing. Bless, we beseech thee, the societies in this 
town, and in the adjoining town, which recognize a 
filial relation to this more ancient church ; bless 
them with the richest of heaven's favors, with faith- 
ful, devoted ministers who shall lead them in the 
way of life eternal. And, Father, we thank thee that 
the views, imperfectly apprehended at first, have 
become so widely spread ; and now it is understood, 
not only that we have the right to defend our own 
liberty, but that we are bound to recognize the 
rights of all around us, — that in the service of God, 
the only limit to our freedom is that we do not in- 
terfere with the rights of others. May this truth be 
widely extended throughout the world, and may its 
influence be seen in the more earnest and faithful 
inquiry of the individual mind to know thee better, 
to know what is true, what is right, what will con- 
duce to the advancement of the Kingdom of thy 
Son, and to the welfare of immortal souls. 

Almighty and most merciful God, may thy bless- 
ings still rest upon this congregation ; may thy bless- 
ing be upon the services of this clay, — upon one 
who is to address us, descended from an honored 
Pastor of this Church ; may his word be inspiring to 
our souls, and may we feel that we are indebted to 
God for the richest blessings in the inheritance that 
has come down to us. And may this Church, 



28 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

this ancient Society, still thrive ; may it hear the 
Gospel of thy Son proclaimed in its simplicity and 
in its purity; and so long as these walls shall endure 
may there never be wanting a congregation hunger- 
ing to be fed with the bread which cometh down 
from heaven, and may there never be wanting a 
voice to proclaim the unsearchable riches of the 
Gospel of thy Son. And may thy truth go forth 
throughout the broad land, and thy kingdom come, 
and thy name be hallowed from the rising until the 
setting sun. Wilt thou hear us in this our prayer, 
forgive us our sins, own and bless us as thy children, 
and accept us while, in the name of Him whom 
thou ever nearest, we ascribe unto thee everlasting 
honors : Amen. 



A Response, " Come unto Me," by Coenen, was then sung 
by Mr. William H. FESSENDEN. 

The Address was then delivered by Mr. CHARLES Eliot 
Norton, of Cambridge. 



MORN IXC, EXERCISES. 



2 9 



ADDRESS OF MR. CHARLES ELIOT XORTOX. 

Mr. Chairman, Reverend Sir? Your Excellency, 

.}/,// and Women of Hmgham: — 

You have thought it becoming to commemorate 
the building of this old Meeting-house on its two 
hundredth anniversary. You have chosen me, as 
the lineal descendant of the minister settled over 
this parish when the Meeting-house was built, whose 
voice was the first to ask the blessing of God within 
these walls, and who for many years, Sabbath after 
Sabbath, here taught the people of the ways of the 
Lord, — you have chosen me, his descendant, to 
give expression to the thought and sentiment nat- 
ural on such an occasion as this. I undertake the 
duty, to which you have called me, in a spirit of 
filial piety. Five generations of my forefathers 
united with your ancestors in worship under this 
roof. I see around me the descendants of those 
who listened to the first sermon heard from the 
ancient pulpit. The names of Hobart, Lincoln, 
Thaxter, Beal, Cushing, Fearing, Loring, Hersey, 
Whiton, Sprague, attest the permanence of the 
families of the early settlers, and the continuity of 
the life of the town, while they bear honorable wit- 
ness to the excellence of the stock planted here. 

1 Rev. Calvin Lincoln. 



30 



THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 



I shall be easily pardoned if to-day I recall a his- 
tory familiar and dear to many of yon. 

No building in the United States is more vener- 
able than this within which we are met. Of all 
edifices an ancient church is the most reverend. 
This is the house of worship in which the weekly 
service of prayer and preaching has been for a 
longer time continuous than in any other in New 
England, — probably than in any other in the United 
States. For us, in this still new world, its age is 
great. But our antiquities are modern as compared 
with those of our Mother-countrv ; the oldest of 
them are of to-day in comparison with the Pyra- 
mids ; they are novelties in the eternity of Nature. 
But the two centuries during which this house has 
existed are the longest centuries in the history of 
mankind, for in their course man has made greater 
progress in the knowledge of the world in which 
he lives, and consequently in power over it, than 
in all preceding time. His relations to Nature 
have changed. He has come into possession of 
new faculties. His thoughts have widened. The 
denizen of a parish two hundred years ago, the 
intelligent man is to-day the citizen of the world. 
Spiritually measured this little span of time is longer 
than cycles of Egypt or Cathay. To the imagina- 
tion this Meeting-house is the monument of a great 
antiquity. 

But it has more than the interest of mere age. 
Like all the works of the hand of man. it tells the 



MORNING EXERCISES. 3 I 

story of its times. It is the expression of the moral 
convictions and material conditions of the men who 
built it. Here is no fine art. No touch of beauty 
is visible here; no faith is here nobly realized in 
imperishable form ; no ideals of life are displayed 
here in dedicated shapes of prophets, saints, and 
kings; no aspirations are manifest in lavish wealth 
of consecrated ornament ; no sentiment of pious ar- 
dor finds utterance in sacred symbols. All is plain, 
bare, homely, unadorned, the work of an ascetic 
race. The fancy can hardly find, in this rough tim- 
ber frame, a type of the temple of the Holy City, 
with its gold and silver and iron and brass and 
purple and crimson and blue; or recognize, in the 
builders with plank and shingle, a community of 
spirit with those who wrought miracles of stone in 
mediaeval church and cathedral. Xo, this is the 
poor Meeting-house of a poor people, of a people 
moreover, to whom the adornment of the church 
and the pomp of ritual were an abomination, and 
who rejected all the imagery of earlier ages of piety, 
even the deepest and tenderest symbols of the faith, 
because associated with superstition and confounded 
with idolatry. To them this plain house, their 
Bethel, was more truly the Gate of Heaven than if 
it had been a pearl like the gates of the New Jeru- 
salem ; and they trusted that the promise made by 
Jehovah to Solomon held good also for them : 
" Mine ear shall be attent unto the prayer that is 
made in this place." 



32 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

I know not if the legend be well attested, but 
you are familiar with the tradition that the little 
band of the first settlers of Hingham, on their land- 
ing here in 1635, led by the father and first minis- 
ter of the town, the valiant Peter Hobart, gathered 
round their pastor under an old oak, to join with 
him in asking the blessing of the Lord on their 
new planting in the wilderness. Within a few 
months they had a house built for public worship. 
It was the central house of the little village, the 
common refuge in times of spiritual stress or mate- 
rial peril. In 1645, at the time of alarm lest the 
Narragansetts should break out in war against the 
colonists, it was voted to erect a palisade around 
the Meeting-house, " to prevent any danger that may 
come unto this town by any assault of the Indians." 
To that house, thus protected, the forefathers of the 
town came to worship and take counsel for forty- 
five years. There, for forty-three of those years, 
Peter Hobart, to whom Governor Winthrop bore 
testimony that "he was a bold man and would 
speak his mind," taught his people. Age brought 
its usual burdens to him, but his heart remained 
fresh, and in his last days, as Cotton Mather re- 
ports, " he set himself with great fervour to gather 
the children of his church under the saving wings 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in order thereunto 
preached many pungent sermons on Ecclesiastes 
xi. 9, 10, and xii. 1." Beautiful is the picture of 
the venerable man, himself the father of many chil- 



MORNING EXERCISES. 33 

dren whom he had carefully nurtured, 1 worn with 
the infirmities of years, and weary with the labors 
which fell to those who had, in their own words, 
"transported themselves, with their wives, their lit- 
tle ones, and their substance, from that pleasant 
land where they were born, over the Atlantic ocean 
into the vast wilderness," for the sake of " liberty 
to walk in the faith of the gospel with all good 
conscience," — beautiful is the picture of the old 
and faithful pastor, death now near at hand, look- 
ing with benignant eyes on the younglings of his 
flock, the first native-born New Englanders, and 
appealing to them : " Remember now thy Creator 
in the clays of thy youth, while the evil days come 
not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, 
I have no pleasure in them." 

It was on the 27th of November, 167S, that " he did 
with his aged hand ordain a successor, which when 
he had performed with much solemnity he did after- 
wards with an assembly of Ministers and other 
Christians at his own house, joyfully sing the song 
of aged Simeon, Thy servant now lettest thou de- 
part in peace." Less than eight weeks afterward 
he died. 

That successor was Mr. John Norton, a young 
man twenty-seven years old, who had received as 
good a training as New England could then be- 
stow. He had been bred under the shadow of the 

1 lie names fifteen children in his will. Five of his sons graduated at 
Harvard College, and four of them became ministers. 



34 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

church. Named for his more noted uncle, one of 
the four famous Johns who were the lights of the 
early church of Boston, he had derived from him 
a taste for learning, and the consecration to the 
ministry. He graduated at Harvard College in 
1 67 1, in the last class sent forth by the pious and 
learned President Chauncy; and Sewall, afterward 
Chief Justice, was one of his classmates. 1 It was 
a distinction then to graduate at Harvard. It 
meant being one of the clerical or magisterial 
order. It meant the possession of pre-eminent ad- 
vantages. But the relation of the clergy to the 
community had already become very different from 
what it had been in the earlier days of the Colony. 
The contrast between the prominent position in 
public affairs, the wide and strong influence, the 
admitted authority of the uncle, and the tranquil, 
retired life, and the narrow limits of influence of the 
nephew, was not altogether the result of diversity 
of opportunities and of gifts. It affords an illustra- 

1 From an entry in SewalPs Diary, published by the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society, — a book from which more is to be learned than from any 
other of the life of Boston and its neighborhood during the last quarter of the 
seventeenth century and the first quarter of the eighteenth, — it would appear 
that Mr. Norton had grave doubts as to coming into the Church. " Satterday, 
Mar. ;„ 167V, went t«< Mr. Norton to discourse with him about coming into 
the Church. He told me that he waited to see whether his faith were of the 
operation of God's spirit, and yet often said that he had very good hope of 
liis good Estate . . . He said, was unsettled, had thoughts of going out of 
the country. . . . And at last, that he was tor that way which was purely 
Independent. I urged what that was. He said that all of the Church were 
.1 royal Priesthood, all of them Prophets and taught of God's Spirit, and 
that a few words from the heart were worth a great deal: intimating the 
Benefit of Brethren's prophesying: for this he cited Mr. Dell. I could 
not get any more." It is not certain that the Mr. Norton with whom Sewall 
Ik Id this conversation was Mr. John Norton, but it seems probable. 



MORNING EXERCISES. 



35 



tion of the general fact that while religion had been 
the chief motive that had brought the colonists to 
the wilderness, and the ministers of religion had 
naturally been their intellectual and often their civil 
leaders, the mere growth of the Commonwealth they 
had planted, with the increase of social and politi- 
cal interests and responsibilities, had resulted in 
the diminution of the preponderance of religious 
concerns in the State, as well as of the authority of 
the clergy. The beginnings of civil democracy were 
weakening the hold of a dominant class. There 
was no sudden revolution, but a gradual and stead- 
ily increasing, though as yet hardly recognized, de- 
cline in the position and power of the ministers. 
As a class they still exercised authority, in virtue 
of their sacred calling and their superior educa- 
tion, but they were no longer the masters they 
had been. 

The year 167S was an important one in the life 
of the young scholar. In that year he was married, 
in that year he was settled over this parish, and in 
that year he published a poem. It was a "Funeral 
Elogy, Upon that Patron of Virtue, the truly pious, 
peerless & matchless Gentlewoman, Mrs. Anne Brad- 
street." I find in my ancestor's performance very 
slight merit, though it gives indication of formal 
training in the stiff poetic fashion of the day ; but 
the enthusiastic historian of American Literature, 
Professor Tyler, who has an eye for swans, discovers 
in it "force" and "beauty," calls it "a sorrowful and 



36 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

stately chant," and even ascribes " poetic genius " to 
its author. Its real interest is in the proof that he 
possessed a fair measure of such culture as was 
possible in New England at the time, and that he 
brought to Hingham the refined tastes, the schol- 
arly disposition, and the literary sympathies which 
would confirm the regard of his people to him, and 
could hardly fail to quicken their own intellectual 
life. 

With the new minister came the thought of a 
new meeting-house. The people had outgrown the 
old house. The Indians had been defeated ; King 
Philip was dead; the palisado was no longer needed 
for defence. After long debate and bitter difference, 
it was resolved to build a new house on a new site. 
Human nature was then much as it is now. " There 
have been successively many days of temptation," 
says Cotton Mather, "in this and that particular 
plantation throughout the country : one while the 
rebuilding and removing of meeting-houses has un- 
fitted the neighbors for lifting up pure hands with- 
out wrath in those houses, and one while the disposal 
of little matters in the militia has made people 
almost ready to fall upon one another with force of 
arms." Hingham experienced both these tempta- 
tions. But the good sense of her people carried 
them through these trials without lasting harm. On 
the 26th, 27th, and 28th days of July (Old Style), 16S1, 
the frame of the new Meeting-house was raised ; 
on the 5th of January, 168 1-2, the town-meeting 



MORNING EXERCISES. $j 

was held for the first time in the completed house ; 
and on the next Sunday, the 8th of January, the 
services of public worship were first held within it, 
and two infants were baptized. It had cost the town 
^430 and the old house. 1 

The building of the new Meeting-house was an 
indication of the prosperity of the people, and of 
their recovery from the losses and depression occa- 
sioned by King Philip's War. New England was 
now at peace ; and the inhabitants of her towns and 
villages were busy with their domestic concerns, and 
with preparation for the struggle into which they 
were entering to maintain their political and ecclesi- 
astical liberties against the aggressions of the Eng- 
lish Crown. For Hingham these were tranquil 
days, and cheerful, in such narrow sense as the word 
retains when applied to the life of New England at 
the end of the seventeenth century, — a life for the 
most part grave, sombre, austere. The interests of 
the dwellers in a village like Hingham, though more 
varied than those of the inhabitants of inland settle- 



1 This was no small sum. Dr. Palfrey seems to believe that in 1679 
the value of the personal property of the whole Plymouth Colony di 
amount to over ^"12,000. See his ///story of JVew England, iii. 21:;. The 
sum required to pay for the Meeting-house was raised by a rate made in 
1680 by the selectmen. The rate was levied on one hundred and forty-three 
persons; the smallest sum laid on any one was five shillings, the la 
,£15 12s. (yd. See appendix to the Rev. Calvin Lincoln's Discourse, delivered 
to the First Parish in Hingham, Sept. 8, 1S69, on Re-opening their Meeting- 
house, pp. 25-28. 

The minister's salary was ^85. In 1698 the rate made for the mainte- 
nance of the ministry, school, poor, etc., was .£130, and the price of grain 
was fixed as follows : Indian corn, y. per bushel, barlev, 3J., rye, y. 6d., and 
oats, is. 6d. — Lincoln's I/istory of Hingham, p. 89, note. 



38 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

ments, were few and narrow. Men and women ap- 
plied themselves to their different modes of rugged 
industry in a sober and severe spirit, born of hard- 
ship and poverty, and of nature kindred to their reli- 
gion. Their recreations were scanty and infrequent ; 
many simple amusements were prohibited by law, 
others by public opinion. The natural gayety of 
youth and the pleasant exhilaration of good spirits 
were alike repressed. It was not because men were 
virtuous that there were neither cakes nor ale, but be- 
cause their religion had spoiled their taste for cakes 
and ale. Hardly one gay laugh of light-hearted and 
innocent mirth is heard in those days. " Once 
hearing some of us laughing very freely," writes the 
Rev. Nicholas Noyes, one of the most cruel perse- 
cutors of the witches at Salem, in his account of the 
excellent Rev. Mr. Thomas Parker, — " once hear- 
ing some of us laughing very freely, while I suppose 
he was better busied in his chamber above us, he 
came down, and gravely said to us : ' Cousins, I 
wonder you can be so merry, unless you are sure of 
your salvation.' " 

Not a song has come down to us from that time ; 
not a love poem ; not a strain of secular music. 
The elevating delights of the arts were unknown, and 
the lack of them unfelt. The creative and poetic 
imagination found scanty nutriment in a soil not yet 
enriched by long human experience and tradition. 

Nature vainly displayed her ever-renewed beauty 
to the eyes of men and women who saw in it a snare 



MORNING EXERCISES. 



39 



for their souls, and regarded her as an enemy rather 
than a friend. The rosy-fingered dawn smiled in 
wain as she mounted from the eastern sea over the 
islands of your bay, and the stars — * 

"Burning fierce anthems to the eternal light" — 1 

rose ineffectual save to darken with intenser gloom 
the souls of men who felt themselves fallen under 
the curse of Adam. In the writings of the first and 
second generations of the native-born New England- 
ers, there is scarcely a touch of genuine observation 
of nature, or an indication of pleasure in her aspect. 
The famous Anne Bradstreet sings of Philomel 
" chanting a most melodious strain " on the banks 
of the Merrimac. Neither she nor any of her con- 
temporaries had eyes for the flowers or ears for the 
birds of New England. 

One single passage, inspired by the homely nature 
familiar to him, stands conspicuous and beautiful in 
the quaint treatise a entitled " Phaenomena quaedam 
Apocalyptica ; or, some few Lines toward a 1 )e- 
scription of the New Heaven as it makes to those 
who stand upon the New Earth/' of the sedate, 
stout-hearted, provincial Judge Sewall. It is like a 
breath of fresh air, and has a sparkle of the open 
sunshine. It is a prophecy of the Christians of 
Newbury : — 

1 This strong verse is from a feeble and tumid Funeral Soul; by Samuel 
\\ glesworth, the son of the more noted poet, Mi. Michael Wigglesworth. 

- First printed in 1697; a second edition appeared in 1727; this para- 
graph which I cite is like a white patch on a Mack robe. 



40 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

" As long as Plum Island shall faithfully keep the com- 
manded post, notwithstanding all the hectoring words and 
hard blows of the proud and boisterous ocean, as long 
as any salmon or sturgeon shall swim in the streams of 
Merrimac, or any perch or pickerel in Crane Pond ; as 
long as the sea-fowl shall know the time of their coming, 
and not neglect seasonably to visit the places of their 
acquaintance ; as long as any cattle shall be fed with the 
grass growing in the meadows that do humbly bow down 
themselves before Turkey Hill ; as long as any sheep shall 
walk upon Old-Town hills, and shall from thence pleasantly 
look down upon the River Parker, and the fruitful marshes 
lying beneath ; as long as any free and harmless doves 
shall find a white-oak or other tree within the township, to 
perch, or feed, or build a careless nest upon, and shall 
voluntarily present themselves to perform the office of 
gleaners after barley-harvest; as long as Nature shall not 
grow old and dote, but shall constantly remember to give 
the rows of Indian corn their education by pairs, — so long 
shall Christians be born there, and being first made meet, 
shall from thence be translated to be made partakers of the 
inheritance of the saints in light." 

Few of his contemporaries had such open vision 
as this pure, tender-hearted, upright magistrate. 

Temptation and danger lay around the people. 
The forest encompassed them, giving shelter not 
only to wild beasts but to the Indian savage. In 
1676, in war-time, John Jacob went out with his 
musket to shoot the deer that trespassed on a field 
of wheat, on what you still call Glad-Tidings Plain. 
He was found dead near his fathers house, killed by 
the Indians. The next day Joseph Joanes's and 
Anthony Sprague's and three other houses were 



MORNING EXERCISES. 41 

burned. This was in war-time, but it takes a long 
while to get rid of the impression made upon the 
fancy, especially upon the sensitive fancy of child- 
hood, by such events as these. Boys and girls durst 
not venture to the far end of the pasture for berries 
or for the cattle. Men carried their firelocks to 
the hay-field, and when they strolled fishing along 
the shore. 

But the fancy was even more affected by dread of 
the spiritual occupants of solitary places than by fear 
of wolf or Indian. The Devil was everywhere. " No 
place that I know of," says one of the Boston preach- 
ers, " no place that I know of has got such a spell 
upon it as will always keep the Devil out." " He is 
here, even in the Meeting-house." " Go where we 
will, he is nigh unto us." There was no saying what 
form, familiar or strange, alluring or terrifying, he or 
his ministers might not assume, what illusion they 
might not practise. Grave, pious, and learned men 
fostered the belief in these spectral apparitions. It 
was a common opinion that " the devils had doubt- 
less felt a more than ordinary vexation from the 
arrival of Christians in this wilderness," which pre- 
viously they had occupied unmolested by "the sacred 
exercises of Christianity." It was ten years after 
this Meeting-house was built that the devils dis- 
played their power on the other side of the bay, in 
the frightful visitation of witchcraft with which 
Salem was cursed. Men, women, and children 
gathered round the fireside at night to scare them- 



42 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

selves into frenzy with reports of the deeds of 
witches, with stories of spectres and signs and por- 
tents. In the howlings of the wintry winds they 
heard the voices of the devils of the air. They in- 
terpreted every mishap as a buffet of the Evil One. 

Ionorance added to their terrors. The native- 
born New -Englanders were less instructed than 
the patriarchs, men of liberal education and wise 
counsel, who had come from the Old World. They 
were farther from the sources of enlarged un- 
derstanding and liberal culture. They were no 
longer borne onward by the deeper currents of the 
life of the world. They had become provincial. 
Their minds had narrowed to their fortunes ; their 
intellectual interests were scanty. Books were few ; 
in many households the Bible was the only one. 
Even the Minister's library was but poorly supplied, 
and its shelves were for the most part loaded with 
treatises of controversial theology. The resources 
of English literature were unknown. Some of the 
chief glories of literature were prohibited. Shake- 
speare was a playwright, the minister of corruption. 
For a century after the settlement of New England 
I find no evidence that there was a copy of Shake- 
speare in the colonies. 1 Pioneers and farmers have 

1 Of course there are likely to have been a few copies in the hands of 
men not Puritan at heart; but there is no reference to his works, so tar as I 
know, in any New England book of this period. The student of New Eng- 
land life would give much for the catalogue of two collections of books, the 
first, the library of Mr. Winthrop the younger, to which Governor Winthrop 
refers in his History, under the year 1640, in a passage that curiously illus- 
trates the superstitious temper of the times, when even the wisest of the lead- 
ers of the Colony could write: "About this time there fell out a thing worthy 



MORNING EXERCISES. 43 

little leisure, and less inclination to read. There 

were no newspapers. 1 There were no means, by 
regular communications from distant places, of di- 
verting or enlarging the thoughts. The horizon of 
ideas was as limited as the horizon of the land- 
scape. 

But the intelligence — stunted, starved as it might 
be — sought and found nourishment for itself, not al- 
together healthy, in one important source. Religion 
became the absorbing and permanent intellectual 
concern. It partook of the dryness of the intellec- 
tual life outside of it, but it served to keep alive the 
minds of men. The system of theology then gener- 
ally accepted was one of the most complex and 
elaborate bodies of doctrine that has ever been 
devised by the ingenuity of subtle and vigorous 
thinkers in the attempt to frame a creed that should 
account for the existence of the universe, the nature 
of the Creator, and the destiny of man. Based 
upon the assumption of the absolute authority of 
the Scriptures, of the Old not less than of the New 

of observation. Mr. Winthrop the younger, one of the magistrates, having 
many books in a chamber where there was corn of clivers sorts, had among 
them one wherein the Greek testament, the psalms, and the common prayer 
were bound together. He found the common prayer eaten with mice, every 
leaf of it, and not any of the two other touched, nor any other of his b 

!i there were above a thousand." Savage's Winthrop, ed. 1S26, ii. 20. 
The list of this thousand volumes would show us what books the first settlers 
brought over. The second catalogue that one might wish for is that of the 
venture of books brought over by John Dunton in 1686, for sale in Boston, of 
which he says, in his entertaining Life and Errors, that "they were most of 
them practical and well suited to the genius of New England." p. 152. 

1 The first Anglo-American newspaper, the />' fetter, appeared 

on Monday, April 24, 1704. It was a small folio half-sheet, issued weekly. 
It contained little news, and had a narrow' circulation. 



44 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

Testament, as the Word of God, and their complete 
sufficiency as a theory of the universe and a guide 
to conduct, the creed attempted to embody the doc- 
trines essential to salvation in a series of mutually 
dependent logical propositions. In its practical ap- 
plication to life it was probably the most artificial 
and the most oppressive creed that has ever exer- 
cised a lasting influence upon a civilized Christian 
community. The fallen nature of man through 
sin, the enmity of God toward the human beings 
he had created, the responsibility of man and his 
helplessness to free himself from the curse de- 
nounced upon him, the damnation of infants, the 
eternal duration of the torments of hell to which 
the vast majority of mankind were doomed, weighed 
with unrelieved gloom upon the soul. There was 
nothing to break the force of the tyranny exercised 
in the name of religion over the spirits of the men 
and women and children in these regions. There 
was no delivery from it. The strong were subdued, 
the weak were crushed by it. In his Diary, under 
date of Jan. 13, 169I, Judge Sewall makes this 
entry concerning his little daughter Betty, a girl of 
fourteen : — 

"When I came in, past 7. at night, my wife met me in 
the Entry, and told me Betty had surprised them. I was 
surprised with the abruptness of the Relation. It seems 
Betty Sewall had given some signs of dejection and sor- 
row; but a little after diner she burst out into an amazing 
cry, which caus'd all the family to cry too ; Her Mother 
ask'd the reason ; she gave none ; at last said she was 



MORNING EXERCISES. 45 

afraid she should goe to I loll, her Sins were not pardon'd. 
She was first wounded by my reading a Sermon of Mr. 
Norton's about the 5 lh of Jan. Text Jn- 7.34, Ye shall seek 
me and shall not find me. And those words in the Ser- 
mon, Jn- 8. 21, Ye shall seek me and shall die in your 
sins, ran in her mind, and terrified her greatly. And stay- 
ing at home Jan. 12, she read out of Mr. Cotton Mather — 
Why hath Satan filled thy heart, which increas'd her Fear. 
Her Mother ask'd her whether she pray'd. She answer'd, 
Yes ; but feared her prayers were not heard because her 
Sins not pardon'd. Mr. Willard [the minister] though 
sent for timclyer . . . came not till after I came home. 
He discoursed with Betty who could not give a distinct 
account, but was confused as his phrase was, and as had 
experienced in himself. Mr. Willard pray'd excellently. 
The Lord bring Light and Comfort out of this dark and 
dreadful cloud, and grant that Christ's being formed in 
my dear child, may be the issue of these painful pangs." 1 

Such a domestic picture, impressive as it is, is but 
a feeble illustration of deeper unrecorded agonies. 

The gentlest preacher must deliver from the pul- 
pit the harsh teaching of his creed. Mr. Norton is 
reported to have been of a mild spirit, and to have 
possessed an amiable disposition, but there is no 
reason to suppose that he failed in orthodoxy or 
softened the stern features of Calvinistic doctrine. 2 

1 Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections. Fifth Scries, v. 419. 

- Only one of his sermons during his long pastorate of thirty-seven 
years was printed. It was an Election Sermon delivered on May 26, 170S. 
" Such an occasion," says Hawthorne, " formed an honorable epoch in the 
life of a New England clergyman.'' Sewall's entry in his Diary concerning 
the sermon is amusing and instructive: "Midweek, May 26, 170S. Mr. Jno. 
Norton preaches a Flattering Sermon as to the Governour." "May 27. I 
was with a Cofnittee in the morn, . . . and so by God's good providence 
absent when Mr. Corwin and Cushing were order'd to Thank Mr. Norton for 
his sermon and desire a Copy." The sermon, printed under the title of An 
Essay tending to promote Education, contains some praise of Governor Dud- 



46 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

The faith he held and taught made life and death 
alike awful. It did not console, it did not cheer. 
It alarmed, it quenched gladness, it destroyed con- 
fidence, it all but destroyed hope ; it invigorated 
but with the invigoration of fear. I do not draw an 
exaggerated outline. The one book produced in the 
seventeenth century in New England that attained 
a real popularity was the poem called " The Day of 
Doom" of Mr. Michael Wiggles worth, the worthy 
pastor of the church in Maiden, who has recently 
been described as "one of the most honored, emi- 
nent, and useful men of the early years of Massa- 
chusetts." " The Day of Doom " was first printed 
in 1662, and it is stated that eighteen hundred 
copies were sold within a single year. 1 But this 
did not satisfy the demand. Edition after edition 
was called for, the sixth appearing in Boston in 
1 716. It was besides twice reprinted in England. 
The book is of no worth as poetry ; the verse is 
mere doggerel ; there is not a touch of poetic fancy, 
not a gleam of imagination in it. It is a description 

ley which was naturally distasteful to the Judge, who stood in manful oppo- 
sition to Dudley's policy; but it is in other respects a creditable discourse, 
mainly directed against the prevailing unbelief. "Our degeneracy," said the 
preacher, "is too palpable to be denied, too gross to be excused." "The 
longer Judgment is delayed, the heavier it will be when it cometh. It shall 
come; it hath sometime Leaden feet, but Iron hands." 

Two years afterward, March 26, 1710, Judge Sewall "went to Hingham 
to Meeting, heard Mr. Norton from Psal. 145. 18. Setting forth the Propi- 
tiousness of God. In the afternoon Lydia Gushing & Paul Lewis were bap- 
tized. Din'd with Major Thaxter, Sup'd with Mr. Norton, Mrs. Norton, & 
their sister Shepard." 

1 Tyler's History of American Literature, ii. 34. This sale, says Pro- 
fessor Tyler, " implies the purchase of a copy by at least every thirty-fifth 
person in New England, — an example of the commercial success of a book 
never afterward ecjualled in this country." 



MORNING EXERCISES. 47 

of the Day of Judgment in coarse, realistic strokes, 
exhibiting the common belief concerning the moral 
government of God, his relations to his creatures, 
and his final judgment of them. Nothing could be 
of greater value as an illustration of the dominant 
superstition, as a measure of the popular culture. 
No more cruel and detestable picture was ever 
drawn under the pretence of exalting the justice 
of the Almighty. The character attributed to the 
Supreme Being is perhaps as outrageous and ex- 
ecrable as a good man ever ascribed to the object 
of his adoration. The work is a marvel of the per- 
version of piety and intelligence. Superstition 
more gross never sheltered itself under the garb of 
Christian doctrine. And yet it was the accepted 
expression of the prevailing creed in New England 
at the time this Meeting-house was built. 

The morality exacted by this creed could be at- 
tained by few. In the wrestlings with sin, omnipo- 
tence seemed often on the side of the Devil. What 
agonies of heart, what terrors of conscience, what 
miseries of contrition were the lot of many a pure 
and innocent soul ! Into what hardness of heart, 
what narrowness of sympathy, what perversion of 
judgment, what pride of self-righteousness, were not 
even good men in danger of falling! To what in- 
difference to sin, what recklessness of conduct, what 
self-abandonment, was not many a light-hearted spirit 
driven through inability to master a passing tempta- 
tion ! 



48 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

It was just after Mr. Norton's settlement, about 
two years before this Meeting-house was built, that 
a Synod of the churches was called in Boston to 
consider " What are the evils that have provoked 
the Lord to bring his judgments on New England," 
and " What is to be done, that so these evils may 
be reformed." It was acknowledged that there was 
degeneracy in New England, " that people had 
begun notoriously to forget the errand into the 
wilderness," that " the enchantments of this world 
caused the rising generation to forget the inter- 
ests of religion," and that consequently " that God 
hath a controversy with his New England peo- 
ple is undeniable, the Lord having written his dis- 
pleasure in dismal characters against us." " It is 
sadly evident," said the Reforming Synod, " that 
there are visible evils manifest which without doubt 
the Lord is provoked by." There is great decay 
of the power of Godliness amongst many professors 
in these churches. Pride both spiritual and in 
apparel doth abound, even among the poorer sort 
of people. Church fellowship and other divine in- 
stitutions are greatly neglected. There is great 
profaneness. There is much sabbath-breaking. 
There is much amiss in what concerns families and 
the government thereof. There are sinful heats 
and hatreds, evil surmisings, backbitings, lawsuits. 
There is much intemperance ; the heathenish and 
idolatrous practise of health-drinking is too fre- 
quent. There are heinous breaches of the seventh 



MORNING EXERCISES. 



49 



commandment, and the temptations thereunto are 
become too common, such as immodest apparel, 
laying out of hair, borders . . . mixed dancings, 
light behavior, unlawful gaming, abundance of idle- 
ness. There is much want of truth amonu men. 
There is inordinate affection unto the world, shewn 
in covetousness ; farms and merchandisings being 
preferred before the things of God. " In this respect 
the interest of New England seemeth to be changed. 
We differ from other outgoings of our nation, in 
that it was not any worldly considerations that 
brought our fathers into this wilderness, but religion, 
even that so they might build a sanctuary unto the 
Lord's name, whereas now religion is made subser- 
vient unto worldly interests." There hath been 
opposition to the work of reformation. Sin and 
sinners have many advocates. A public spirit is 
greatly wanting in the most of men. And, finally, 
there are sins against the Gospel, whereby the Lord 
has been provoked. 1 

Such in brief is the indictment brought against 
the people by the clergy. It is evidence of the 
strength of resistance of human nature against a 
strict ecclesiastical system, against overstrained de- 
mands in the name of religion. That there had 
been a decay of the ancient piety is no doubt true, 
but we are not to accept these charges against the 
community as evidence of general depravity. Even 

1 Mather's Magnolia, book v. part 4, is devoted to this Reforming Synod, 
"with subsequent essays of reformation in the Churches." 

4 



5Q 



THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 



the divines of the time did not all of them consent 
that the backsliding of the people of God in this 
land had been so great. Cotton Mather, for ex- 
ample, in introducing the account of this Synod in 
his " Magnalia," declares, " the most impartial ob- 
servers must have acknowledged that there was 
proportionably still more of true religion, and a 
larger number of the strictest saints in this country 
than in any other on the face of the earth." But 
this solemn testimony of the ministers against the 
sins of the people had a real foundation in the ten- 
dency of the time, adverse to the former strictness 
of church order. The gradual relaxation of ecclesi- 
astical severities in Massachusetts was accompanied 
by some real as well as apparent laxity of morals. 
Mr. Norton may have had occasion within these 
walls to warn your ancestors and mine against 
the sins which the Synod rebuked, and to lament 
their lukewarmness of spirit and the lack of the 
ancient piety. It is apt to look from the pulpit as 
if the earth were growing darker, such is the con- 
trast at all times between the ideal and the actual 
conduct of life. Let us hope that he and his people 
sometimes found in the Gospel consoling truths, 
ministering comfort and hope, of which not the 
degeneracy of the times nor the character of their 
faith could deprive them. 

False, oppressive, as the creed of New England 
had been and then was, we are not to forget that it 
nurtured precious virtues. From the rock itself 



MORNING EXERCISES. 5 I 

sprang living waters. The creed was the produc- 
tion of men of independent souls, of resolved pur- 
pose, of moral integrity. It bred men of like temper. 
It was the creed of political independents, and of 
republican institutions. The seed of liberty lay in 
it. The doctrine of the fall of man brought all men 
on a level. King, priest, the noble, the rich, were 
sinners in the eyes of the Lord no less than the 
poor and the humble. God is no respecter of per- 
sons was its first lesson. It was no creed of mere 
authority to be believed because incredible. Irra- 
tional as it was it addressed the reason no less than 
the conscience. It required discussion and dis- 
crimination. It opened the way to endless contro- 
versy. The Bible, the Word of God, was its source, 
but the reason must be appealed to for the right 
interpretation of that Word. Many false premises 
were taken for granted, many false conclusions 
drawn from them. But the argument was an exer- 
cise of the reasoning faculty. Wits were sharpened 
in theological disputation for use in other debates. 
Thought slowly won its freedom ; and freedom led 
to truth. Freedom of mind is the prerequisite of 
free institutions. Theology was close akin to poli- 
tics. History as well as doctrine was studied in the 
Old Testament. When, in 1683, Edward Ran- 
dolph, the arch-enemy of Massachusetts, was de- 
parting for England to give his aid toward vacating 
the Charter of the Colony, the old patriot and 
Deputy-Governor, Thomas Danforth, addressed him 



52 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

a brief letter of warning, with references to appro- 
priate passages in Genesis, Exodus, and the Acts. 1 
It was characteristic of the mode of thought and 
argument of the times. The faith of the New Eno-- 
land Puritan, while debasing him before the Lord, 
gave him virtue to stand before tyrants. 

From the beginning their religion, their manner 
of life, the wilderness which they were compelled to 
conquer, the institutions which they established and 
maintained, were preparing the colonists to become 
the founders of the mightiest empire of self-governed 
men that the world has seen. And during the 
whole course of Colonial history, the meeting-house 
— the house for the town-meeting as well as for the 
worship of God — was the central hearth of light 
and warmth for the little world of each community. 

At length, in 1716, after thirty-seven years of 
ministry, the old pastor, of whom so little is known, 
but whose praise is in the tranquillity of his long 
term of service, was gathered to the fathers. Some 
time passed before his successor was chosen ; but 
in June, 171S, a young graduate of Harvard College, 2 
Ebenezer Gay, not yet twenty-two years old, was 
ordained in this house, and here for almost seventy 
years did this good man preach. He was ninety 
years old when, on a Sunday morning, as he was 
preparing for the usual public services of the day, 

1 The letter may be found in Palfrey, History of A T ew England, iii. 375. 

2 Of the class of 17 14; a class of eleven members, of whom four were 
natives of Hingham, one of them being a grandson of Mr. Hobart, the first 
minister. 



MORNING EXERCISES. 53 

death came to him. His pastorate, and that of his 
predecessor, stretch over a hundred years, from the 
dark days of the vacating of the Old Charter of 
Massachusetts, and the tyranny of Andros, to the 
establishment of the Independence of America and 
the adoption of the National Constitution. Hing- 
ham had borne her little part, not without credit, 
through the century ; and she owes lasting Gratitude 
to these venerable teachers who, generation after 
generation, devoted themselves to the training of 
her sons in the service of the Lord that so they 
might do 2;ood service to their land. 

One figure stands specially notable as represen- 
tative of Hingham during the years of the Revo- 
lution and the foundation of the Republic, — that of 
General Benjamin Lincoln. The Lincolns are of 
the original stock of the town, and there is no need 
to recount here, where the story is familiar, what 
credit they have clone to it for two hundred and 
fifty years. In this Meeting-house, in 1733. Benja- 
min Lincoln, son of Benjamin, was baptized by Dr. 
Gay. He was brought up under this pulpit, and it 
is not venturing too much to ascribe a share of his 
qualities to the influence of the disposition and dis- 
course of his learned, liberal, kindly, and devout 
minister and friend. Lincoln's character bears the 
true New England stamp. He had the virtues of 
a simple, sturdy, self-respecting community. He 
was the foremost man of the town, because in him 
the best qualities of her people found fullest ex- 



54 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

pression. He was not a man of genius either in 
field or council, but he had' that saving common- 
sense which is the intelligence of the community 
concentrated in an individual. " I entertain a very 
high opinion of his judgment and abilities," wrote 
Washington at an early period of their acquaint- 
ance. " He is an active, spirited, sensible man." 
He was in truth all this and more. Washington 
himself was not of purer integrity, nor of completer 
self-possession. Neither elated by success nor de- 
pressed by defeat, steady under either fortune, free 
from jealousy and selfish ambition, cordial in spirit, 
kindly in temper, he discharged faithfully and with 
honor every duty with which he was intrusted ; and 
devoting all his faculties to his country's cause, he 
rendered her service that will make his name im- 
mortal in her annals. I like to dwell on the life 
of this honest farmer of Hingham, who rose to the 
level of high duties on a great stage, performing 
them simply as he would have performed those of 
Justice of the Peace, or member of the Great and 
General Court. He embodies the plain, substantial 
excellence of the New England village, the child of 
the meeting-house and the school, — no hero but 
a well o-rown man. 1 

o 

1 Mr. Norton here interrupted himself to read the following letter, which 
he gave to the town to be preserved in the Public Library: — 

Watertown, July 29, 1775. 

GENTLEMEN : — When I accepted a seat at the Council Board, I moved in 
the House that a precept might go out, empowering the Town of Hingham 
to send another member to y e General Court. The request was granted; 
and I here inclose to you the precept. I hope the Inhabitants of the Town 
of Hingham & y e District of Cohassctt will improve the priviledge. 



MORNING EXERCISES. 55 

The theology of Dr. Gay was of a milder type 
than that of his predecessor. The conditions of 
life in the older settlements of the country, like 
Hingham, were adverse to the literal harshness of 
the still nominally accepted creed. Without vio- 
lence of disruption, without intermission of devout 
service, without recognition of any special moment 
of change, the faith of the community became less 
and less technically orthodox, was less rigid in ad- 
herence to the Five Points of Calvinism, and shaped 
itself gradually into conformity with the genial tem- 
per of a people that was becoming strong and pros- 
perous, less anxious and more confident in itself, 
from decade to decade. The standards of morality 
became more rational. Men might wear their hair 
short or long, as it pleased them, without sin. They 
had begun to laugh and to dance, though still with 
some rigidity of feature and awkwardness of limb. 

Altho' Gentlemen, I am removed from the House of Representatives, and 
therefore am not considered as your particular representative in General 
Court, yet y< will not remove from my mind the great obligations I am under 
to the Inhabitants of the Town of Hingham & v District of Cohasset, nor 
will it discharge me from the duty I owe them, or lessen y- concern I have 
to promote their best interest so far as my small ability shall enable me to 
do it, — for I consider that it is partly owing to their favourable notice of me 
that I have been brot into public view — I recollect with gratitude that they 
have conferred upon me most if not all the places of honour & trust that 
were in their power to give. 

That they have kindly accepted my small services when I have been em- 
ployed by them, & have been disposed not to exaggerate my many faults 
& imperfections, but on y c other hand have discovered a disposition at all 
times to draw a vail over them — to be forgetfull of or silent with regard to 
such notice, respect & tenderness would argue want of gratitude, and crimi- 
nal inattention or great insensibility. 

I am Gentlemen with great esteem for you, y c Town & District your 
most obliged, obedient, & Hum- Servant. 

Bent. Lincoln. 

To v e Gentlemen Selectmen of Hineham & Cohassett. 



56 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

General Lincoln was a devout Christian of the 
new type; and when in 1787 Henry Ware suc- 
ceeded Dr. Gay in this parish, Lincoln, thirty years 
his senior, was in sympathy with the liberal views 
of the young minister, and a friendship grew up 
between them, founded on mutual respect and con- 
formity of religious opinion. 

Mr. Ware was a worthy follower, in purity of 
character, in learning, and in intelligence, of his 
three predecessors; but when in 1805 he was called 
to Harvard College, although he had occupied this 
pulpit for eighteen years, his pastorate was less 
than half as long as the shortest of the preceding- 
ministries. 

In 1806 the Rev. Joseph Richardson was or- 
dained to succeed him. Differences of religious 
opinion, as well as personal differences, attended his 
settlement, and a portion of the parish withdrew 
to form a new society. In the course of years the 
differences have disappeared, and the two societies 
recognize their common faith and history, and take an 
almost equal pride in the Old Meeting-house. With 
various interruptions, occasioned by the part he took 
in public life, as well as by ill-health, Mr. Richard- 
son remained Minister of this parish until ten years 
ago, when at the age of almost ninety-four, his death 
closed a pastoral term of more than sixty-five years. 
In 1855 the Rev. Calvin Lincoln, himself a descend- 
ant of Peter Hobart, was settled as Associate Pastor, 
and to-day we are gladdened by his venerable pres- 



MORNING EXERCISES. 



57 



ence, and salute in him the sixth in that line of 
eminent and faithful servants of the people of the 
Lord, whose record is the story and the commen- 
dation of Hingham for two centuries and a half. 1 

Such a record is unmatched, so far as I know, 
in the annals of New England. There is a peculiar 
and pleasing correspondence between the perma- 
nence of this house and the loner duration of the ser- 
vice of each of those who have ministered within 
it. The changes in the house itself, since it 
was erected, typify the changes in the creed of the 
preachers. It has been enlarged since its first con- 
struction, as if in accord with the more comprehen- 
sive scheme of salvation. Its inner structure has 
more than once been made more commodious, as 
if to typify the greater spiritual comfort of the doc- 
trine delivered from the desk. Sixty years ago it 
was warmed for the first time in the winter season, 
as if a milder and more genial heat was required, as 
the flames died away in that dismal place where, 
according to Mr. Michael Wigglesworth, — 

" God's fierce ire kindleth the fire, 
And vengeance feeds the flame 
With piles of wood, and brimstone flood, 
That none can quench the same." 

But as the Old Meeting-house still stands essen- 
tially the same, so in spite of differences of form 

1 A few weeks after the delivery of this address the Rev. Mr. Lincoln 
died. He was nearly eighty-two years old, and was struck down in the per- 
formance of the services on Sept. 8, iSSi, the day appointed for prayer for 
the recovery of President Garfield. 



58 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

and statement of belief, in spite of differences of 
moral judgment and spiritual aim, the congrega- 
tion gathers here from week to week with essen- 
tially the same purpose as that which brought our 
forefathers to this house, — namely, to be instructed 
in the truth and to study to be good. A continu- 
ous spiritual life runs through the centuries, and 
here its continuity is most deeply felt, for here in 
each generation have high ideals been quickened, 
pure resolves animated, and all that was best in the 
hearts and souls of the men and women of this 
town cherished, strengthened, and confirmed. 

The record of recent years is no less significant 
of the worth of the lessons received here than that 
of the earlier time. There are associations belong- 
ing to this house, within the remembrance of those 
still young among you, that shall help to confirm 
the character of the latest generation of worshippers 
that shall gather here. Twenty years ago many a 
youth went out from yonder door to meet danger 
and death with a high heart. Here America, 
through your lips, Reverend Sir, appealed in the 
name of religion to her sons, and did not appeal 
in vain. Here, when the storm of war had ceased, 
the town gathered to mourn and to honor, not only 
her own dead sons, but him, revered, beloved of 
the whole nation, him beyond praise, him of the 
Hingham name, Abraham Lincoln; and here, but 
six years ago, the town assembled once more to 
offer its tribute of undying honor to its own great 



MORNING EXERCISES. 59 

citizen, the man worthy to be named in the same 
breath with Abraham Lincoln, — John Albion An- 
drew. Such associations as these, such memories, 
arc the live coals on the altar to kindle virtuous 
aspiration into flaming achievement. 

Who shall ever enter this house hereafter in 
times of stress, when the State calls on her children 
for sacrifice of private interests to public service, 
without recalling the resplendent example of An- 
drew, and drawing inspiration from his magnani- 
mous devotion to the cause of humanity and liberty? 
His was a manly nature. You remember him, — 
the cheerful neighbor, the lover of children, the 
friend of the poor, the comforter of those in trou- 
ble, the man of simple tastes, the lover of nature 
and of poetry; with sympathies quick as light, with 
feelings warm as a mother's heart ; ardent and im- 
petuous in spirit, ready in counsel, prompt in deci- 
sion ; the Puritan in the blamelessness of his life, 
the latitudinarian in the breadth of his charity, the 
Cavalier in the dash of his charge, the Roundhead 
in his faith in God and in the keeping his powder 
dry. and in every attitude and action the good citi- 
zen, the sound, large-hearted man. You remember — 
for was he not yours by adoption ? — how naturally 
he grew up to the foremost place in the State ; by 
what open and honest means he won the confi- 
dence of the people of the Commonwealth ; how he 
scorned subterfuge and the devious arts of trading- 
politicians ; how the people recognized in him the 



60 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

embodiment and expression of their own best sen- 
timent and purpose. No Governor ever stood a 
more complete representative of his State than 
John A. Andrew stood during the years of war. 
For the moment he and Massachusetts were one. 
As the great heart of the generous new West beat 
in the breast of Lincoln, so the great heart of the 
older East answered sympathetically to it in the 
pulses of Andrew. From the first call of the war 
until the last he was always in the front ; and 
when the war was over his liberal hand was the 
first to be held out, with hearty and frank confi- 
dence, to the enemy against whom he had fought 
so strenuously. He gave his life to his country, 
and in the bugle notes over his grave were heard 
the laments of the Union, South and North, blend- 
ing in sorrow for the friend of all mankind, — "for 
behold the Lord had taken away the stay and the 
staff, the mighty man and the man of war, the 
judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and 
the honorable man, and the counsellor, and the 
eloquent orator." 

In your Excellency's [Governor Long] interest- 
ing sketch of the life of Governor Andrew, in the 
volume which records the services and sacrifices of 
the sons of Hin^ham for the cause of Freedom and 
Union, you have spoken of the worth of his exam- 
ple for future generations. It is, indeed, an example 
for times of prosperity and peace, no less than for 
those of adversity and war. It is the virtue of a 



MORNING EXERCISES. 6 1 

great character to be of universal service, to help 
men in ordinary as well as in exceptional occasions. 
For the village Hampden, or the hero who reads 
his history in a nation's eyes, follows but one and 
the same path, the narrow path of duty, which 
sometimes may become the path of glory, but which 
for the most part is simply the path of every-day 
life. This path, trodden by the common men and 
women of every period, is the thread of light run- 
ning unbroken through the past up to the present 
hour. Creeds change, temptations differ, old land- 
marks are left behind, new perils confront us, but 
always the needle points to the North Star, and 
always are some common men and women follow- 
ing its guidance. And this is what unites us in 
spiritual relationship with those ancestors of ours 
from whom we are parted so widely in faith, in 
knowledge, and in manners, and whose remoteness 
from us is marked, not so much by astonishing dif- 
ference in material circumstances, as by changes in 
thought and belief. They will not disown us for 
their children so long as we do our duty faithfully, 
as they did theirs. They fought a good fight with 
the devils of adversity and hardship ; it is for us 
to fight with the devils of prosperity and ease. 
The aspect of the battle has changed, but the bat- 
tle still goes on. They have entered into rest ; we 
are in the heat of work. May our work be not less 
strenuous, not less deserving to endure than theirs ; 
so that when this day shall be the past of two hun- 



62 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

dred years, and our children's children shall gather 
here again, to seek fresh invigoration for the per- 
formance of duty, they may find it in our exam- 
ple as well as in that of our elders, and say as 
we say, — 

" Let the Work of our Fathers stand ! " 



The " Old Choir" then sang a Hymn (" Northfield "). 

Mr. Richard Henry Stoddard, of New York, then 
read a poem, as follows : — 

POEM OF MR. RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 
OUR FATHERS. 

Here, where our fathers worshipped in the Past, 

And where their children worship now, we come, 

With reverent spirit as befits the place, 

The house they builded for their heavenly needs, 

On this green hill, two hundred years ago. 

Averse from ceremonious forms and rites, 

They left their dear ancestral homes, the graves 

Wherein the ashes of their dead reposed ; 

They crossed a thousand stormy leagues of sea, 

Bearing the best of England in their breasts, 

And planted the New World in the wilderness. 

Masterful men, but narrow ; quick to do 

The work that seemed appointed to their hands ; 

Content with simple pleasures, or with none ; 

Not troubled with unprofitable thoughts ; 

Of one thing sure, that God would judge them all, 

Their sturdy virtues were the corner-stone 

Whereon were set the pillars of the State. 

Their lives were hard ; they tilled the stubborn soil, 



MORNING EXERCISES. 63 

Beset with peril from their savage foes. 
Or ploughed the windy furrows of the deep, 
Under the Pole Star, or the Southern Cross ; 
Adventurous, resolute, all their creed summed up 
In the right to worship God in their own way, 
And not as priests ordain. They had it here, 
Here where their marriage vows were interchanged, 
Their children were baptized, and where, at last, 
When the long pilgrimage of life was done, 
The mourners bore their bodies. Graves were dug 
On the green hillside where their fathers slept, 
And they were buried there with many tears, 
With homely headstones, carved with cherubs' wings, 
And under these the years of birth and death, 
And pious texts of Scripture which declared 
That, dying in the Lord, the dead were blessed ; 
For there remains a rest for them, a house 
Not built with hands, eternal in the heavens. 
Such hope, such certainty, our fathers had ; 
Such hope, such certainty, such rest be ours. 



Watts's Hymn, " From all that dwell below the skies," 
was read by Rev. Henry M. Dean, Minister of the First 
Baptist Society, and sung by the Congregation to the 
tune of " Old Hundred." 

HYMN. 

From all that dwell below the skies, 
Let the Creator's praise arise ; 
Let the Redeemer's name be sung 
Through every land, by every tongue. 

Eternal are thy mercies, Lord ; 

Eternal truth attends thy word ; 

Thy praise shall sound from shore to shore, 

Till suns shall rise and set no more. 



64 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

The morning exercises closed with a Benediction pro- 
nounced by Rev. William I. NICHOLS, Minister of the 
Second Parish. 



BENEDICTION OF REV. WILLIAM I. NICHOLS. 

May the peace of God, which passeth understand- 
ing, keep our minds and hearts in the knowledge 
and the love of God, and of Jesus Christ our Lord : 
Amen. 



It was now half past one o'clock, P.M., and the congre- 
gation were invited to repair to Loring Hall, just across 
the way, to partake of a collation which the Committee 
had there provided for them, and many availed themselves 
of the invitation. 

Rev. Dr. Miles asked a blessing at the tables. 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 



AFTER an hour's intermission, the congregation again 
assembled in the Meeting-house. The exercises of 
the morning had been so interesting that all seemed eager 
to return, and anxious not to lose any portion of the- 
se rv ices. 

An Anthem, " Prepare Ye the Way," by Garrett, was 
first sung by the Quartette. 

Rev. Joseph Osgood, of Cohasset, was called upon to 
offer prayer. 



PRAYER OF REV. JOSEPH OSGOOD. 

Almighty God, our Father in Heaven, again we 
would look to thee, and would thank thee for all 
the joy, for all the quickening influences, for all 
the strengthened faith, and for the brightened 
hopes of this meeting. We thank thee, Almighty 
God, for this ancient Meeting-house, that thou 
hast preserved it from fire, from wind, and from 
tempest, that from generation to generation it has 
sheltered thy worshippers, and that within these 
walls pure and fervent prayers have gone up to thee 
for strength, for light, for guidance, for comfort. 

5 



66 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

We thank thee for all the thoughts of religion, of 
patriotism, of love, and of patience which have been 
born and nourished in this house ; and while we 
thank thee for thy mercies to us and to thy worship- 
pers in this house in the past, we would supplicate 
the continuance of thy blessing in the future, and 
may this house be for generations to come the house 
of God and the very gate of heaven to many souls. 
Here may thy children be strengthened in faith, here 
may their love be purified and enlarged, here may 
they be incited to all nobleness ; and, Almighty God, 
while we ask thy blessing on this house, we also 
would ask thy blessing on him who has for so many 
years ministered within these walls, — praying thee 
to watch over him and to bless him, and to let the 
light of thy love and of thy grace shine upon his 
declining years. Wilt thou hear us and accept us, 
receive our thank-offerings, and guide us in all our 
words, thoughts, and meditations at this hour, and 
unto thee be the praise and the glory forever and 
ever : Amen. 



The exercises then proceeded as follows : — 

The Chairman said: Our thoughts naturally recur, on 
such an occasion as this, first to the Parish itself, and to its 
line of ministers, — I cannot say its long line of ministers, 
but to its short line with their long terms of service. I 
have the pleasure of introducing Mr. Horton, now of the 
Second Church in Boston, who is the last of that line. 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 67 



ADDRESS OF REV. EDWARD A. HORTON. 

The joy which animates our exercises to-day is 
peculiarly rich and complete. We turn to the past, 
laying there our crowns of approbation ; but we 
also find, in the present, causes for congratulation. 
Men commemorate dead honor and buried great- 
ness; we celebrate virtues transmitted and elements 
of ancestral pride still throbbing in the actual 
pledges and lives of those who inherit the ideas and 
spirit of the founders of this church. It were a 
notable thing to mark the perpetuity of a building 
so old, so time-defying as this ; yet more distinctive 
is our act when we know that the principles and 
aims it represents, — the spiritual body as com- 
pared to the material, — are still thrifty and fruitful, 
fostered by the loyalty, fed by the devotion, of men 
and women as truly meritorious to-day as were the 
heroes of old. The chief lessons of this occasion 
have already been suggested by the address of this 
morning, or through the impressive meditations 
naturally created in every mind. Still, it may not 
be useless, or inappropriate, for each one who may 
voice the hour, to speak in his own way of the 
thoughts that come to him, winged with instruc- 
tion. For me the event, now writing itself on your 
records, contains exceptional interest. To it, in my 
recent labors, my eyes had turned with sparkling 



68 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

anticipations. Along the line of my predecessors 
I glanced, and saw them come forth to join in the 
festal service. Hobart, the fearless, whose lips never 
quivered with cowardice, but often trembled with the 
fervor of heroic avowal ; Norton, the patient pastor, 
whose feet never tarried at duty's call, but frequently 
grew weary in the path of the tireless shepherd ; 
Gay, the scholar, whose books were never closed, 
and whose sermons bore the burden of much learn- 
ing ; Ware, the logician, whose eminent character 
shone like a beacon to guide his profession, and 
whose name became a synonyme of purity and 
candor ; Richardson, the earnest, whose strong 
stroke on practical themes made him anvil and 
hammer to forge the conduct of men, — these were 
the departed, whose transfigured spirits I saw re- 
visiting the scenes of their prolonged pastorates. 
All recognized the house of worship, save one, — 
he, the first, who passed away ere this present struct- 
ure w r as reared ; but his countenance shone with 
pleasure as he saw the enlarged circumstances and 
enhanced privileges of the church whose growth 
he nourished amid dangers and poverty of ritual. 
They are all here to-day ; and with them your be- 
loved pastor of so many years, — late may he seek 
the temple not made with hands! — a worthy link to 
bind us with the noble past we honor. By virtue of 
the ties once existing between us, I, too, am conscious 
of a union with this glorious company. In their 
steps I followed. The marching music of their 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 69 

souls I heard ; the pulses of their zealous hopes I 
felt. Far behind and much below I followed, but, in 
my measure, with happy and total allegiance to the 
same great objects. I venture, then, to sketch some 
salient traits which, I think, characterize this society. 
As we look over this long vista of history, with its 
continuous path in which one " unceasing purpose 
runs," we may fitly ask : What are the predominant 
features? What lessons can we reap which, duly 
pondered, may yield us the seed-thoughts of ample 
truths in the future ? 

Convictions, strong and compelling, have ruled 
the destiny of this parish. Deep convictions, power- 
ful enough to sway the small actions of men, I see 
marking the careers of the ministers who served the 
early life of this people. They believed something, 
and they spoke with the fire and incisiveness that 
come of decision. Call them sometimes astray ; 
better that than supineness, and the cultivated in- 
difference that reduces every glorious epoch to a 
fog. This pulpit has been no "coward's castle," 
where ignorant men might hurl anathemas, or bigots 
denounce honest differences ; from it, as from a 
throne, kingly minds have uttered their last best 
conclusions. Doctrine has been important; belief 
a necessity; clear ideas concerning duty, God, and 
destiny ever sought for. Life has been portrayed 
as a battle, but with the Higher Powers ever in 
sympathy with the noble efforts of man. 

Deeper even than the intellectual soil, has run 



7<D THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

the granite of a genuine religious spirit, — that un- 
derlying reality on which all churches are built; 
without which, praise is hollow, and creeds a mock- 
ery. This is the attitude of the mind ; the dispo- 
sition of the feelings. Relisfion is dead when the 
true spirit fails to animate it. I seem to hear the 
old psalms of praise ; I see the mourner's face 
transformed by hope ; the Holy Ghost sweeps over 
the congregation, and all are lifted into heights of 
vision. Such moods and experiences are attendant 
on true worship. Contemplation catches the mes- 
sage, as the flower drinks in the sunbeam. A true 
religious spirit idealizes its surroundings, runs its 
path up steep sorrows to tranquil peaks of out- 
look ; it is beatitude, prayer, gratitude, song. 

Flaming from its banners has always been the 
proclamation of liberty; be it added, a freedom 
dignified by reverence and governed by sobriety. 
The theology of this church has responded to the 
tide of progress. Never hastily, always timely, the 
thoughts peculiar to this pulpit have expanded 
with the ripening influences of advancing ideas. 
Preacher and worshipper have lived in the open 
air, the sunshine and wind of God's immanent 
presence. Here they have listened, here they have 
reasoned, here they have been taught to obey the 
dictates of conscience and of truth. Christian lib- 
erty and fellowship have been equally fostered, 
creating a fraternity which embodied diversity in 
unity, individualism and co-operation, the rights 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. Ji 

of each and the rights of all, — a freedom, in fine, 
that has provided conditions of development for 
every temperament within Christian bounds. 

In consequence we find a marvellous loyalty 
here. This fact to many of you may seem the 
most striking. Invisible hands of affection support 
this edifice ; unseen hearts of attachment guard its 
walls. Because of this catholicity and freedom-lov- 
ing temper, the sons and daughters of this venerable 
home ever revert tenderly to it. The persistence 
with which the ark has been carried ; the sacrifices 
borne; the undaunted adherence attending distress- 
ing periods, — all this stands forth with amazing 
prominence in the annals of this society. Much 
of this is owing to the original character of the 
people. In their blood exists the loyal, tenacious 
clasp on the old and time-honored objects of ex- 
istence, so characteristic of our Mother England. 
Associations to you have charm, and recollection 
weaves in your imagination sacred ties with the 
past. You are wont to strengthen the things 
that remain; you defend your ancestors; you re- 
spect that which is tried and true. For this, — 
all honor. 

With so much intertwining of this church in your 
daily life, it has become a power in your homes. 
This is true of all the past we review. What I may 
term a community spirit has always radiated from 
this religious organization. Your hearthstone fires 
have been kindled by the altar flame of this spot. 



72 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

Themes considered here on Sunday have provided 
discussions in your shops and fields. Consciously 
or unconsciously the endeared tones of this bell 
have sounded on through your weekly avocations. 
Too much are our churches becoming lecture-rooms, 
— mere assembly-rooms for an hour's delectation with 
brilliant sermon or fine music, both of which are 
excellent when wedded to other elements. Here 
you form friendships, group united labors, and cre- 
ate a centre of personal enthusiasm which sends 
its waves of inspiration on many a shore of remote 
transaction. Long may this be said of you and 
your church. 

Naturally, then, your records teem with the beauty 
of sentiment. This town possesses two distinct 
veins of character, ever blending and combining. 
Your church has always revealed the same ele- 
ments ; you are poetry and prose. In some re- 
spects cautious, cool, — in other phases you abound 
in acts of sentiment, you cherish the retrospective 
colors of history, you seize upon little commemo- 
rative events, and invest them with pathos, wit, and 
charm. I admire this combination. It is unique. 
Way back in the past it was crescent, and now 
waxes full. Preserve the love of sentiment by 
the side of the prosaic drudgery of life ; it fresh- 
ens existence as a gentle stream makes green the 
adjacent land. Sentiment, hand in hand with rea- 
son, moves the world. It rings the bells of prog- 
ress, lifts the flags of reform, crowns the brow 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 73 

of industry, and redeems our ordinary selves from 
dust and death. 

I have little doubt that in the minds of the 
founders of this community some vague hope of a 
Theocracy existed. It was a bold desire of the 
Puritan, a mild theory in the Pilgrim. A study 
of the Bible had revealed to them the belief that 
Church and State should be one — at least if shaped 
and controlled as they deemed the only true way. 
The records of Massachusetts Bay disclose this ; 
though there is not much in the history of this 
settlement to prove it, yet the idea colored thought 
and, a little, moulded habits. The taxing of all the 
people for the support of one church, was in this 
direction. At root the view was good, but it can 
never obtain realization in our land as some of our 
fathers saw it. Better than that is the Theocracy 
of justice and truth and love, whereby the laws of 
God are potent, not through arbitrary imposition, 
but by education, refinement, and elevation ; in 
which Church and State together work, separate 
yet united. 

The spirit of equality has always been too power- 
ful in your midst for any theocratic hope, such as I 
have hinted at, to flourish. Probably in no com- 
munity have the original conditions of New Eng- 
land society been more clearly preserved than here. 
No chasms of caste have separated you ; no exorbi- 
tant accumulations of wealth have set one class 
aside from the rest. Hand clasps hand across all 



74 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

differences of age and lot. I speak as one once 
moving among you. It was my joy to know, as I 
looked upon you from Sunday to Sunday, that I 
addressed one family ; the one message went to all, 
was received by all. And in your plans of public 
affairs, serious or recreative, there has ever been a 
harmony, a blending, which God grant may con- 
tinue. A man s a man, for what he is of pith and 
merit. 

Sociability, or the brotherhood fraternity, is a 
woven good-will, — the love of human kind put into 
the fabric of society. It is one of the fundamental 
requirements of Christianity. No religious organi- 
zation can maintain itself long which has not the 
cohesiveness of mutual esteem and interest. Such 
an affinity permeates your body. To the bedside 
of the sick the well repair; sympathy brings her 
flowers, her fruit, and, better still, her words of 
kindness. Your busy needles have sewn the gar- 
ments for the poor, for the soldier in the war, for 
the needy in hospital and asylum. Each annual 
passage is marked by gatherings of parish mem- 
bers, where the young and the old reknit acquaint- 
ance, and quicken an organic life. To and fro, in 
constant interchange, your good-will offerings pass, 
annihilating all petty partitions of geographical or 
social nature. 

From such a unanimous and fraternal people one 
might expect exactly what has been realized, — the 
heartiest relations between pastor and parishioner. 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 75 

The record of the seven ministers you have had 
plainly shows this. While other societies have 
undergone changes from fickleness, indifference, or 
over-exaction, this church has gone on steadily, 
holding up the hands of each successive pastor, 
and keeping the value of the institutions far above 
the transient man. This church was built up around 
ideas; they live, — men pass. The congregations 
of this sanctuary, as a rule, never assembled to wor- 
ship the preacher, but God. Therefore defects were 
often graciously overlooked, mistakes forgiven ; and 
the intent, the aim of the preacher, held in view to 
his final gratitude and improvement. Few are the 
churches in our land where parishioners are such 
friends of the pastor as here; he is a part of their 
homes, their hearts, their pride. 

As we gaze at these axe-hewn beams, again we 
hear the stroke of the honest builder; as we inspect 
the curious sounding-board, we listen to the earnest, 
pleading tones of many an eloquent sermon ; as we 
scan the part where once the choir with instruments 
numerous sat, we listen to sonorous viol and pun- 
gent flute. The old square pews are again in place ; 
the long prayer is over and the scats clap their 
hands from side to side of the aisles; the guardian 
moves about, waking the sleepy and reproving the 
noisy; the trees whisper through the open windows 
and flash in on every dim corner beams of loving 
light; men look out at odd moments upon the 
clustered graves that contain revered mortality. As 



76 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

we continue to scan the scene our eyes recognize 
representative faces ; there a Lincoln, a Hersey, 
a Hobart, a Thaxter; here a Burr, a Wilder, a 
Cushins:, a Bicknell, a Beal ; and in the midst 
a Leavitt, a Whiton, an Andrews, a Tower, a Ripley, 
or a Jacob. The service is over, the impressive 
benediction given, and from the unlocked pews 
stream the serious company, — the grandsire and 
the child ; the ruddy mother and the stalwart son ; 
the clear-headed father, ready to discuss the points 
of the sermon ; and the fair maiden who has found 
out, by some occult intuition, that he whom best she 
loves will join her on the way home; her cheek 
flushes with joy ; there, too, is the stranger from 
another town, who tarries to speak with the preach- 
er, and convey his greetings and thanks. Groups 
gather in the yard, but gradually dissolve ; and ere 
the day has ended, each knows the other's store of 
news, each has quickened life, each feels renewed 
interest in man, God, and duty. What, then, has 
this Church done? In its faithful pursuit of ends 
the most ennobling, what has it done for us all, — 
for the country at large ? 

It has shaped the right kind of clergy. As Dean 
Stanley truly says: "In the beginning of Chris- 
tianity there were no established preachers, and 
there may come a time when the clergy, as a class, 
may cease." But they have risen out of the needs 
of mankind, as judges and lawyers and doctors 
have come into being. They serve the imperative 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 77 

and unceasing needs of humanity. While they are 
the agents of the divine and eternal, their power is 
without cessation ; as they stand in the way, or 
become tools of error and wrong, serving the falli- 
ble and transient, they fall into condemnation and 
removal. The people make the pastor, as much as 
the pastor makes the people. You, in your history, 
have moulded a noble line of ministers, demanding 
the best, the highest. This church has been the 
mother-home of a multitude. Think of the years 
gone by, and of the sons and daughters, sent forth 
into all parts of the land, taught here to rear virtu- 
ous homes, to plant education, to emulate the purest 
examples, to add to honorable gains of labor, to 
spread refinement and comfort, — in fine, taught to 
be, in all relations of life, manly men and gentle 
women. Where can we find a parallel to this ? 
Two hundred years of unremitted, voluntary service 
in religion and morals ! What a contribution to the 
intelligence and character of our country ! This 
Church lives to-day reproduced in every State of the 
Union. It may challenge the more ostentatious 
institutions of later periods to bring forward equal 
evidence of efficiency and success. Here has been 
a fearless witness, for two centuries, to special and 
general truth, — the special truth of Christianity, 
and the general truth confluent to it and enrich- 
ing it from all sources. Never has the banner of 
Christ been lowered, nor, on the other hand, have 
the claims of new ideas been barred out. I doubt 



78 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

not there have been errors in the administration of 
doctrine in this church, as in all churches ; but I 
may speak from what I know, that the utterance 
here is not fettered. I am sure this must have been 
the rule in days past. The intent and wish, at the 
heart of this worshipping body, is to be disciples of 
Christ in liberty, — thinking to him, feeling to him, 
following him, with reason awake, conscience alive, 
and every faculty not suppressed but developed. 

In justice to others I must bring these remarks to 
an end, although there is much more to say. Their 
length, as it is, can only be excused on the ground 
of my past relations to you. Whatever may be my 
lot in the future, the remembrance of this church 
and its people will glow like fire in the high heaven 
of my love. You will not cease to cherish this 
venerated edifice. Providence seems to protect it. 
Its beams have become hardened like stone to resist 
decay. May the storm and the conflagration spare 
it ! May all malign and disastrous events pass it 
by ! To its aisles may worshippers come for untold 
years ! May admiration lift its eyes to the simple, 
quaint steeple, and a national pride at last enshrine 
these walls with notable honors! Dotting our land 
are many shafts, statues, and historic structures, 
each voicing some valuable lesson ; but this old 
Meeting-house, so sturdy, so home-like, so digni- 
fied, so individual, proclaims to every thoughtful 
mind the great duty of man's loyalty to a Higher 
Power and a Divine Life. 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 



79 



The Chairman". — You have heard a representative of 
the ministers. It seems becoming that we should now hear 
from a representative of the people. Prominent among 
the names of the early settlers here were Thomas Loring 
and Philip James, and I have the pleasure to introduce 
to you a descendant of these two settlers, — and one bear- 
ing the name of one of them, — the Rev. EDWARD JAMES 
Y< iUNG, of W'altham. 

ADDRESS OF REV. EDWARD J. YOUNG. 

This is an occasion to me of no ordinary interest. 
Reminded, as I am, of those from whom I am de- 
scended, who have lived in this town and have walked 
these streets and now sleep in yonder cemetery; 
remembering that they helped to build this house, 
that they worshipped here, that here they brought 
their cares and sorrows, and pondered here the great 
problems of life, I cannot join with you in com- 
memorating their worth without emotion. I qo back 
to Thomas Loring, who came from Axminster, in 
the county of Devon, England, in 1634, who drew a 
house-lot on North Street, which was then Town 
Street, and who held the office of deacon in this 
church, and I trace the family line clown to him 
whose name is associated with yonder hall. 1 I go 
back likewise to Philip James, who came over in the 
"Diligent" in 1638 from Hingham in Norfolk, and 
I follow his line down until it blends with the other ; 
and, as I find the names James and Loring borne by 
members of my own family to-day, I seem now to 

1 Loring Hall, the gift of Colonel Benjamin Loring of Boston. 



80 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

have come to the old family homestead, for the 
church is a religious home to those who worship in 
it. The church edifice of my boyhood, where I was 
brought up to attend public worship, has already 
disappeared, 1 but this Meeting-house of my ancestors 
still stands ; and, associated as it is with their mem- 
ory and consecrated as.it has been by their prayers, 
I feel, whenever I enter it, that I am upon holy 
ground. And when I consider that it is the oldest 
building: of its kind in the land ; that it is more 
ancient than Christ Church, or the Old South, or 
King's Chapel in Boston, and even than the " Old 
Swedes " sanctuary in Philadelphia, which was 
erected under the patronage of Gustavus Adolphus, 
and which celebrated its one hundred and eighty- 
first anniversary last month ; when I reflect that this 
has survived so long although it was built of wood, 
while those others were constructed of brick or 
stone ; and when I call to mind the fact, that prob- 
ably some of the Pilgrims who came in the May- 
flower have been present at the meetings here ; as I 
give myself to these reminiscences, the past comes 
back again, these seats are re-occupied, I see the 
little band of emigrants, and, as I listen to the an- 
cient melodies which we have heard, the same which 
they used to sing, — 

" In each low voice methinks a spirit calls, 
And more than echoes talk along the walls." 

1 The " Church on Church Green," which formerly stood at the junction 
of Summer and Bedford streets in Boston. 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 8 1 

I have been endeavoring to make real and vivid 
to myself those times, to bring back out of the 
shadowy past those scenes and the actors in them ; 
and I ask your attention while I attempt to sketch 
the outlines of such a picture, and to describe briefly 
the religious, or, more properly speaking, the ecclesi- 
astical, life of those early days, as it is set forth in the 
laws and contemporaneous writings of that period. 

The Sabbath in New England began at sunset on 
Saturday; 1 but all labor was forbidden after three 
o'clock on Saturday afternoon, not that persons 
might have a half-holiday, as now, but that the time 
might be spent in catechising and preparing for the 
Sabbath. When Sunday came, it was prescribed 
that there should be absolute rest; so that when the 
master of a Dutch ship sailed into Boston harbor on 
Sunday and fired four shots, he was fined forty shil- 
lings a shot; but afterwards, when it was found that 
none of his crew could speak a word of English, the 
penalty was remitted to forty shillings in all. The 
Indians hardly knew what to make of these Sunday 
laws ; and on being asked if they would refrain from 
working on the Sabbath within Christian towns, 
they answered: "It is easy for us; we have not 
much to do any day, and we can well rest on that 
day." The punishment for the violation of the Sab- 
bath was to pay a fine of thirty shillings and to sit 
one hour in the stocks. I know not what our fore- 



1 Sanction for this, it was thought, was found in the Bible, since, accord- 
ing to Genesis i. 5, "the evening and the morning were the first day." 



82 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

fathers would say if they should revisit us now, and 
see the crowds that throng to Nantasket in the sum- 
mer on Sundays. I fear that there would scarcely be 
timber enough in the forests out of which to make 
the stocks that would be requisite for offenders. 

Besides legal enactments which were enforced, 
there were officers appointed, each of whom had the 
inspection of ten families, to see that every one went 
to church. Sometimes two officials were employed 
to walk abroad into the fields, and if they found any 
who did not attend upon "the word and the ordinan- 
ces," and who could not give a satisfactory account 
of themselves, they took their names and presented 
them to the magistrates. The meeting-house was 
surrounded by a palisade, which was built of tall 
stakes, as a protection against the Indians ; and the 
building often served as a fort, and powder was 
stored in it. A certain number of men were detailed 
to go every Sunday to the place of worship with 
arms and ammunition, in order to be able to repel 
any assault. People were usually called to meet- 
ing by the beating of a drum, or, in some places, 
by the raising of a flag; but this house had a 
bell on it, as was the case likewise with that at 
Cambridge, Watertown, and Woburn. 1 This fact, 
together with the amount which each one was as- 
sessed for the cost of this structure, and which in 
some cases was as much as fourteen or fifteen 
pounds sterling, seems to indicate that the com- 

1 I.. R. Paige, History of Cambridge, p. 247 (1632); S. Sewall, History of 
Woburn, pp. 78, 79 (1642) ; H. Bond, History of Watertown, p. 1046 (1649). 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 83 

munity here were in better circumstances than some 
of their neighbors. In going to church women 
often rode on pillions, — cushions or soft saddles, — 
on which they were seated behind the men. 

When the people arrived at the meeting-house, 
there were no carpets, no cushions, no pews, but 
only hard oaken seats, one of which I remember to 
have seen twenty years ago in the south-west gallery, 
and which was very long and heavy. The men sat 
on one side of the house and the women on the 
other; and, as the building was not warmed, the 
worshippers sometimes in cold weather had to strike 
their feet one against the other, which occasioned 
such noise that but little could be heard of the ser- 
mon. 1 Psalms alone were sung during the service. 
Even if there had been any hymns, their use would 
have been disapproved of, since, being the work 
of men, they could not be considered, like the 
former, as the word of God. The Bay Psalm Book 
was generally used, and, although it was then com- 
mon, it is now so rare that a copy of the original 
edition is worth its weight in gold. 2 The psalms 
were sung line by line, 3 as we have heard them to- 
day, and the accompaniment was a pitch-pipe, which 

1 Judge Sewall writes in his Diary (vol. i. p. ri8): "Sabbath, Jan r . 24. 
[1685.] This day so cold that the Sacramental Bread is frozen pretty hard, 
and rattles sadly a- broken into the Plates." 

2 Dr. X. l;. Shurtleffs copy of the Bay Psalm Book was sold at auction in 
Boston in October, i' ne thousand and twenty-five dollars. —Pro- 
ceedings of the Mass. Hi-t. Society, 1S76-77, p. ir. 

8 "As, for several years alter the introduction of the new psalm-b 
many neglected or refused to purchase it, and others were unable to read, 
they were obliged to revive the practice of Luther, of reading <>r lining the 
hymn." — N. D. Gould, History of Church Music in America, pp. 33, 34. 



84 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

gave place at length to the flute, bass-viol, fiddle, and 
clarionet, which until a comparatively recent date 
formed so quaint and interesting a feature of the 
services in this house. The religious exercises in the 
morning beo;an at about nine o'clock or earlier. 
The prayer by the Pastor occupied about a quarter 
of an hour. 1 The Scripture was read and expounded 
by the Teacher; but sometimes this was omitted, 
and it is expressly stated that here there was no 
reading of the Scriptures. 2 A psalm was then 
" lined off " by a ruling elder, and sung by the con- 
gregation. The sermon followed, and it frequently 
lasted two hours, so that the hour-glass was turned 
twice. It consisted to a great degree of passages 
from the Bible, and the " Improvement," as it was 
called, was often as long as the argument. Occa- 
sionally persons present were weary and restless ; 
and, in a satire on one of the preachers of that day, 
he is represented pictorially as saying to his audience, 
" I know you are good fellows ; stay, and take 
another glass." It is related of a minister who stood 
in this pulpit when it was placed against that side of 
the house which is nearest the cemetery, that, seeing 
many asleep, he said sarcastically that those behind 
him could hear as well as those before him. On 



1 On public Fast-days the devotional services were much longer; and 
Sewall mentions a private Fast at which, after three persons had prayed and 
one had preached, another "prayed about an hour and a half." — Diary of 
Samuel Sewall, vol. i. p. 76. 

2 "In some Churches, nothing is read on the firft day of the weeke, or 
Lord's day, but a Pfalme dictated before or after the Sermon, as at Hi?ig- 
ham" — Thomas Lechford, Plaine Dealing: or Naves from New England ; 
in the chapter on The publique worshipe. 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 85 

one occasion, when a minister came on an exchange, 
after he had finished " Seventeenthly " in his dis- 
course and had come to " Finally/' an old farmer 
exclaimed that he was glad to hear that word, for he 
had cows to milk and six miles to walk, and he was 
afraid that he should not get home in time. It was 
the duty of the tithing-man to keep the people 
awake, striking the boys with a knob which was at 
one end of his pole, and tickling the ears of the girls 
with a feather, which was at the other end. And it 
is recorded that one man was presented to the Court 
"for common sleeping at the public exercise upon 
the Lord's day, and for striking him that waked 
him ; " and that afterwards, not having amended, he 
was sentenced to be "severely whipped." 

The service in the afternoon began at two o'clock, 
and the order of exercises was the same as in the 
morning, except that toward the end one of the 
deacons rose and said, " Brethren of the congrega- 
tion, now there is time left for contribution ; where- 
fore as God hath prospered you, so freely offer." 
Whereupon the magistrates and chief gentlemen 
first, then the elders and all the men, all single 
women, widows and women in absence of their hus- 
bands, came up one after another and put their 
money into a wooden box ; and, if they had anything 
else to give, they left it in the " Deacons' seate " and 
passed on. In this seat, besides the two deacons, 
sat one person in this parish, named Matthew 
Hawke, who took down in short-hand the sermons ; 



86 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

so that this practice, which is thought to be of mod- 
ern origin, has a precedent in the earliest history 
of New England. During the service in the after- 
noon others, beside the Pastor and Teacher, spoke, 
as they were called upon. It is mentioned that the 
governor " spake to the question ; " after him, the 
elder ; then some two or three more of the congre- 
gation ; and any, young or old, except women, could 
ask questions at the mouth of the prophets. In 
some meeting-houses there was a stool of repentance 
for transgressors, who were placed on an elevated 
seat, with labels designating their offences, which 
were worn upon their persons so as to be seen by 
all. Confessions also were required to be made by 
penitents before the congregation on Sabbaths and 
Lecture days. 

The Minister was not addressed by the title of 
Reverend, but he was called simply Mr., although on 
portraits and pamphlets there was sometimes printed 
after his name, V. D. M., which was an abbreviation 
of Verbi Dei Minister, — " Minister of God's Word." 
In addition to preaching on Sunday he delivered a 
weekly Lecture, which in Boston was given on 
Thursdays, and was long continued as the Thursday 
Lecture. In some places this lecture began very 
late and lasted verv lon^, so that the attention of 
the Legislature at one time was called to it ; and a 
decision finally was made that the " church assem- 
blies might ordinarily break up in such season as 
people that dwell a mile or two off might get home 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 87 

by daylight." The minister's salary appears to have 
been paid here in money; but often he was paid in 
country produce or in whatever the people were able 
to procure. The Plymouth legislators proposed, as 

a thing they judged would be very commendable 
and beneficial to the towns where God's Providence 
should cast any whales, if the people should agree to 
set apart some portion of every such fish or oil for the 
encouragement of an able, godly minister amongst 
them. The minister was the parson, which, as is 
well known, means the person in the parish. He 
was a much more important personage then than 
he is now. His advice was asked concerning laws 
and questions which came before the General Court. 
If any one spoke against him or his preaching, he 
could be sentenced to be fined or whipped, to have his 
ears cut off, or to be banished. Since every individ- 
ual was obliged to contribute to his support; since 
all were constrained to come to hear him on penalty 
of being fined five shillings for every absence, even 
on Fast and Thanksgiving days ; and since each one 
was compelled to keep awake during the preaching, 
it is evident that the minister was more highly 
favored than he is in these days. One part of his 
duty, however, which he is expected to perform now, 
was unnecessary then. He attended no weddings 
or funerals ; for marriages were performed only by 
the magistrates, and the dead were 1 juried without a 
prayer. This was one cause of the opposition to 
Rev. Peter Hobart, when he went from Hingham 



88 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

to Boston to officiate at the marriage of a man who 
belonged to his parish. As Governor Winthrop 
says, he was considered to be opposed to the ecclesi- 
astical and civil government, and " we were not 
willing to bring in the English custom of ministers 
performing the solemnity of marriage." 1 

To avoid everything suggestive of heathenism, the 
days of the week were called first, second, third, and 
so forth ; and the months were named in a like man- 
ner, beginning with March which was the first, and 
ending with February which was the twelfth. No 
one could be a " freeman," or could have the right 
to vote or hold any office or sit on a jury, unless he 
was a member of the church. If any one denied 
the received doctrines, or broached and maintained 
any damnable heresy, he was expelled from the 
Colony. Whoever declared that any of the books 
of the Old and New Testament were not the word 
of God could be condemned to pay a fine of fifty 
pounds, or be whipped with forty lashes. If he 
publicly recanted before his conviction, he could 
then be fined ten pounds or be whipped. For a sec- 
ond offence of this sort he could be banished or put 
to death. Even dress was regulated by law, and it 
was ordered that persons should not wear clothes 
"above their quality and condition," while laces, em- 
broidered caps, belts, and beaver hats were forbidden. 
The Court, taking into consideration the great dis- 
order general through the country in costliness of 

1 History of New England, vol. ii. p. 313. 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 89 

apparel and following new fashions, on one occasion 
sent for the elders of the churches and conferred 
with them about it, and laid it upon them as belong- 
ing to them to redress it, by urging it upon the con- 
sciences of their people, which they promised to do. 
But little was done about it, however, says the his- 
torian, "for divers of the elders' wives, &c. were in 
some measure partners in this general disorder." 1 
Down to the year 1780 women in country parishes 
kept off their bonnets during services in the meet- 
ing-houses. 

There were three methods and means of punish- 
ment in those days, which were to be seen in every 
town in New England. One was the stocks, — 
called also the "bilboes," because they were formerly 
manufactured in great quantities at Bilboa in 
Spain, 2 — which in this town formerly stood where 
the court building now stands; which were used for 
various offenders, but the first person who occupied 
them in Boston was the man who made them, 
and who charged what the Court thought was too 
much, so that he was fined and sentenced to sit an 
hour in them. The second was a wooden cage, in 
which criminals were confined and exposed to pub- 
lic view on Lecture days for profaning the Sabbath 
and for other acts of wickedness. The third was a 
whipping-post, to which malefactors who had been 

1 Winthrop, History of New England, vol. i. p. 275. 

- The pillory differed from the stocks, since in t he latter the culprit was 
, and his hands and feet were confined; hut m the former he stood 

upon a small platform, while his head and arms were secured by a board 
which came down upon and closed fast around them. 



90 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

convicted of forgery, lying, and speaking against the 
magistrates and churches, were bound and lashed. 
Persons guilty of profanity were obliged to stand for 
half an hour with their tongue in a cleft stick. For 
drunkenness a man was disfranchised, and compelled 
for a year to wear suspended from his neck a large 
letter D, made of red cloth and set upon white. For 
blasphemy, he was branded on the forehead with 
the letter B, which was burned into his flesh with a 
hot iron. For heresy a Quaker was branded on one 
of his hands with the letter H ; and another, who 
was wandering about as a tramp without any regular 
occupation, was branded on the left shoulder with 
a capital R, to signify that he was a rogue. All 
persons convicted of railing and scolding, it was de- 
creed, should be gagged, or set in a ducking-stool 
and dipped over head and ears three times, as the 
Court or magistrate should judge meet. 

I have given these facts, which are matters of his- 
tory, for the sake of contrasting those times with our 
own. To complete the story, let me now read a few 
extracts from a sermon delivered in this Meeting-, 
house by one of the early ministers of this church. 
The subject of it is " A Pillar of Salt to season a 
corrupt age," and it was preached at the Lecture 
in Hingham in 1728 by Ebenezer Gay, from the 
text Luke xvii. 32 : " Remember Lot's Wife." 

" In her flight from Sodom she looked back, and she 
was struck dead upon the spot, and was turned into a 
Pillar of Salt. By her becoming a Pillar of Salt, some, I 
think, understand no more than her being made a lasting 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. gi 

Monument of God's severe Justice ; as a perpetual Cove- 
nant is stiled a Covenant of Salt. Numb. 18. 19. But 
why the literal Sense of the words should be rejected, I can 
see no Reason; but do believe that she was really turned 
into a Pillar, a Statue of Salt, a kind of rocky, mineral 
Salt, which will endure all Weathers and not waste away. 
Naturalists write of Salt which is hard enough for build- 
ings. — Joscphus who lived since Christ was on Earth, 
saith that the Pillar of Salt was standing in his Time, and 
that lie himself had seen it. And the like is affirmed br- 
others since his time. 

" Was Lot's Wife a greater Sinner than You or I? We 
shou'd look upon the Pillar of Salt, that our Flesh may 
tremble for Fear of God, and that we may be afraid of his 
Judgments. What he hath done to others, he may do to us. 

" To Unconverted Sinners. Original Sin is greater than 
all actual Abominations that were committed in Sodom. 
Sodom was a Sink, but corrupt Nature is a Fountain of 
moral Defilements. Those who are in the State of Polluted 
Nature are in respect thereof more filthy and desperately 
wicked than the People of Sodom were in respect of the 
actual Abominations which prevailed in it. It was possible, 
tho' very difficult for one to live in Sodom, and not be in- 
fected with the Sins of that Place; but it is impossible for 
one to abide in the State of Nature and to be free from the 
Pollutions of it. God may justly say concerning all who 
are in the State of polluted Nature, as in Jer. 23. 14. 
They arc all of them unto me as Sodom, and the Inhabitants 
thereof as Gomorrah. 

" How did the poor tormented Wretches in Sodom run 
screaming about, when showers of flaming Brimstone came 
down upon them, and their Bodies were so many blazing 
Torches ! Alas, How then will miserable sinners roar out, 
gnash their teeth and gnaw their Tongues for Pain and 
Anguish, when they shall be thrown into the Lake that 
burns with Fire and Brimstone, which is the second Death, 
far worse than the first ! 



9 2 



THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 



" Awakened Sinners. Look not behind you, lest ye be 
consumed. — Will it not be as great a Sin in you to look 
back, as it was in Lot's Wife? And may you not well be 
afraid of as great a Judgment, as that inflicted on her? If 
you look back, ye may become Pillars of Salt, Monuments 
of GOD'S severe Justice, Spectacles of Shame and ever- 
lasting Reproach. Lay aside every weight, and the Sin that 
doth so easily beset you, and run with patience and per- 
severance the race set before you: — and as ye run, Re- 
member Lot's Wife. 

" Dr. Edwards saith, That it is not improbable that Lot's 
Wife, who was turned into a Pillar of Salt, was saved not- 
withstanding this Judgment sent upon her by God. W T e 
have (saith he) no ill Character of this Woman in the 
Scripture : [he might as truly have said, that we have no 
good one:] we cannot (saith he) gather from anything 
that is said in the sacred History that she had been a 
wicked Person : [neither can we that she had been a 
righteous Person:] But this we know, saith he, that she 
was the Consort of a pious Saint and beloved of GOD ; 
[we also know that a wicked Woman is sometimes the 
Wife of a godly Man:] And we know, saith he, that she 
was mercifully delivered out of Sodom as well as her Hus- 
band : [so might Lot's Sons in Law have been, had they 
not laugh' d at the warning given them.] 

"Thus I thought it meet to stir you up, by putting 
you in Remembrance of Lot's Wife. And if you are 
Careful to improve what hath been said, You shall 
find that that Pillar of Salt hath not to this 
day lost its Savour ; but that your hearts are 
seasoned thereby with such Caution 
& holy fear, as will be of un- 
speakable & eternal advantage 
to you : Wherefore Be 
not forgetful Hearers, 
but Remember 
Lot's Wife." 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 93 

Does it not seem as if more than two centuries 
had elapsed since these opinions, customs, and stat- 
utes, to which I have referred, were in vogue I 
in Xew England ? 

Friends, your parish is to be congratulated not 
only on having preserved such a venerable, historic 
edifice, but also on having had such long pastor;, 
which is without a parallel in the churches. The 
town also shares in the honor of the parish, while it 
also has honor of its own, having given to the State 
its two most popular chief magistrates, so that, bor- 
rowing and slightly altering the words of the prophet, 
we can say, — " .And thou, Hingham, in the land of 
Plymouth, art not the least among the cities of 
Massachusetts, for out of thee have come two gov- 
ernors who have ruled my people Israel." 

The CHAIRMAN. — You know that our ancestors, our 
fathers who built this house, were most of them farmers, — 
husbandmen. We hear of carpenters and weavers and 
coopers, but the principal occupation was farming; and it 
is pleasant to have with us to-day a friend of the farmers 
and a lineal descendant from one of the earl}' families of 
this town, — the Wilder family. I have the pleasure <^ 
introducing to you Mr. WILDER, president of the Xew 
England Historic-Genealogical Society. 

ADDRESS OF HON. MARSHALL P. WILDER. 

Mr. President, — You and my friends will not 
expect much from me that is interesting, after the 
very instructive, carefully prepared, and eloquent 



94 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

addresses to which you have listened, and the very 
interesting record of the Rev. Mr. Young. 

I am grateful, from the bottom of my heart, that 
I am able to be present here to-day, to meet so 
many old friends, with some of whom I have been 
long associated in the various departments of life. 
Mr. President, I could not be deprived of the privi- 
lege of being here to-day as a representative of the 
Wilder blood, although I might be taken for the 
wildest of the Wilders. 

I rejoice to be here on the spot where Martha 
Wilder and her daughter Mary landed in 1638 
from the good ship " Confidence," which sailed 
from Shiplake in England. From these, and from 
Thomas and Edward Wilder, have descended the 
numerous families of the Wilder blood that are 
scattered all over our country. 

Did time permit, it would be interesting to trace 
back the genealogy of the Wilders, — as we think 
we can, — through the English Wilders to Nicholas 
Wilder, a military chieftain, who fought under the 
Earl of Richmond, at the battle of Bosworth, in 
1485, and who received afterward from that mon- 
arch, Henry the Seventh, as a testimonial of his 
valor, a title of land and a coat of arms, which are 
now in possession of the W T ilders, at Perley Hall 
and at Sullivan House, in Berks, England, where 
the Rector of Suxham, the Rev. John Wilder, D.D., 
is the fourth of the Wilders who have occupied that 
position. 



AFTERNOOX EXERCISES. 95 

But, Mr. President, I cannot discover that any 
of our Wilders have been great fighting men, or 
whether they have ever inherited any of the fight- 
ing qualities of this valorous warrior, Nicholas. For 
myself, although I have held many military com- 
missions, I preferred farming to fighting, but I am 
in duty bound to say, as I should in all fidelity to 
the Wilders, that both the English and American 
Wilders have held high official and judicial posi- 
tions, not only in this country, but in the father- 
land. 

And now, in regard to farming, Mr. Chairman, — 
Hingham has been noted for more than a hundred 
years for her interest in farming. Benjamin Lin- 
coln, the father of the illustrious General Benjamin 
Lincoln, was a farmer, as General Lincoln was him- 
self, to whom, under the order of Washington, the 
British army surrendered at Yorktown, a century 
ago this very year. A most glorious event which 
closed the American Revolution ! 

A hundred years ago, or less than that, in the 
early part of this century, Hingham was noted for 
its nurseries and for its interest in farming. Here 
the Herseys and the Burrs had nurseries, and I 
rejoice that their representatives still live and are 
carrying on the good work here, as you have all 
seen by the elegant trees on the streets. A flower 
garden or a fruit garden is attached to almost all 
your premises; and more than all you have that 
beautiful cemetery, where repose the remains of 



96 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

John Albion Andrew, that friend of freedom and 
friend of humanity. 

But to no one is Hingham so much indebted for 
efforts to promote the science of the soil as to the 
late Hon. Albert Fearing, founder and president of 
its Agricultural Society, and donor of its Public 
Library, who will be gratefully remembered while 
Hingham has a place in the annals of history. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having alluded to 
the New England Historic-Genealogical Society, for 
we have received great aid from Hingham. Its 
duty, its privilege, and its object is to treasure up, 
record, and perpetuate everything that may apper- 
tain to occasions such as the present, and to the 
history of our towns, and the progress of civiliza- 
tion in our country. I must not forget that John 
Albion Andrew was the president of our Society, 
and held that office at the time of his death. And 
I rejoice to say that we have, as another member of 
our association, one who has his home here, John 
Davis Long, — than whom no chief magistrate has 
conferred more honor on the State, or has dis- 
charged the duties of his office with more grace, 
integrity, or ability. 

It affords me great pleasure to be here to-day, 
here for the last time in good old historic Hing- 
ham, here in this ancient Meeting-house, here to 
participate in the ceremonies of this occasion ; and 
I give you as my closing sentiment: The good 
men, the good women, and the good principles of 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 



97 



old Hingham, — the home of the Lincolns, of 
Andrew, and of Long. 

Mr. Chairman, I desire to incorporate in my 
remarks, which you see have been without prepa- 
ration, a remembrance of your honorable father, 
the venerable Solomon Lincoln, to whom the New 
England Historic-Genealogical Society has been 
very much indebted for its prosperity. 



The " Old Choir" then sang with great effect the anthem 
entitled " Ode on Science," which was sung also at the 
ordination of Rev. Joseph Richardson, the fifth minister 
of the church. 

The Chairman. — We all know that the great heart of 
the Commonwealth beats in sympathy on occasions like 
this, and none realize it so much as we citizens of Hing- 
ham, who are so near its head and heart, Governor Long. 



ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR LONG. 

The exercises of the morning, the associations 
of the past that have been revived, the words and 
the presence of these venerable men who are upon 
the platform and who have spoken, have so mel- 
lowed and inspired the afternoon that I certainly 
should not break the spell with any voice of mine 
were I speaking for myself and not for the Com- 
monwealth, which should be represented here. It 
was to be presumed, as the event indeed has shown 
already, that everything that is due to an anniver- 

7 



98 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

sary like this — whether it be of tender memories, 
or of grateful tribute, or of lessons of the past, or 
suggestions for the future — should be said by an 
orator so fitting to the occasion, both in himself 
and in his descent from the first minister who 
preached within these walls. There is nothing to 
add to the clean-cut and incisive analysis which he 
has given. And yet even as, when we sometimes 
honor a man who is distinguished for nobility of 
life, or greatness of achievement, or the ripe and 
venerated perfection of age, we crowd around him 
to add to our spokesman's words some loving salu- 
tation of our own, or even the mute pressure of our 
hand, so to-day, even though the thoughts that we 
speak have been already better spoken, we throng 
this ancient shrine, we venerate these ancient walls, 
we reach through the centuries and grasp the hand 
of Peter Hobart and John Norton, and it is certainly 
with full hearts that we speak our word of gratitude 
and of affection. In that spirit we stand here no 
longer as we should stand under any other roof. I 
see, as you see, a scene that is not before the out- 
ward eye. These pews, these faces, these costumes 
disappear, and in place of it all the unceiled rafters 
are over my head ; there is no paint to discolor the 
wood; the rude, rough-hewn carving of the axe is 
the only decoration ; the oaken and unbacked seats 
fill this floor, the men on the one side, the women 
on the other ; the musket rests against the knee ; 
and the stern and unattractive face of the English 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 99 

Puritan, clad in the homely garb of his clay, — a 
subject still of King Charles, yet never a slave to 
him nor to the forms of his church, — looks back 
into my gaze. 

It is as a member of this parish, though of a 
branch of it, yet springing from the same deep root ; 
it is as a citizen of this town, which, in its corporate 
capacity and at the common charge, bought this 
land and built this house, and for aught I know still 
owns it at least so far as to be entitled to share in 
its preservation and honor, which for more than a 
hundred years here held its town-meetings and dis- 
cussed great questions of public right and safety; 
and finally, it is also as a representative of the Com- 
monwealth, which counts nowhere within its borders 
an edifice at once so old and so sacred as this, that 
I come to lay my gift upon its altar, and to pay my 
tribute of respect to the men who raised its frame, 
to the men who have handed it down to us as a 
sacred trust, and, let me add also, to the men in 
whose loyal keeping it is to-day. I think, indeed, 
that it is not at all unfitting that the Commonwealth 
should have a special interest in this building ; for, 
when in 16S1 a difference of opinion arose as to 
where it should be set, as differences of opinion 
have arisen and will arise in the best regulated New 
England churches, it was the governor, — Governor 
Bradstreet, I think, — who, with an unhesitating dis- 
regard for the wishes of the parish, took the matter 
into his own hands, and ordered it to be set upon 



IOO THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

the spot where it now stands. And when I now 
reflect that everybody to-day is content with that 
selection, and that all would regard it almost as 
sacrilege even to think of changing the situation, it 
seems to me a most significant illustration of how 
superior is the judgment of a governor to that of 
everybody else, and how much better he knows how 
to regulate the affairs of the people than they them- 
selves. Alas ! I fear that his authority has been 
steadily impaired since that clay, and if he were to 
undertake to interfere in the slightest degree with 
parish administration now, he would find his occu- 
pation gone. 

The nineteenth century, and it is worth remem- 
bering, will not see again such an anniversary 
as this, the celebration of the two hundredth anni- 
versary of the raising of a Puritan Meeting-house, 
— none other so old and still used for public 
worship within the United States. Of the five 
successive ministers who have preached from its 
pulpit, the last still lives, and is to-day the sole 
pastor of its congregation. More remarkable than 
this is the fact, already adverted to, that during 
the two hundred and fifty years' existence of the 
parish, six ministers span the whole period. I refer 
to that fact again simply to say : May not such 
a parish — yes, may not the town, may not the 
Commonwealth — turn with pride to such a list 
as that ? One, a graduate from Magdalen College, 
Cambridge, England ; four, graduates from Harvard ; 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. IOI 

and one from Dartmouth. Peter Hobart, whom 
I think of as the Sam Adams of the Colon)-, — 
better known as an apostle of civil liberty than as a 
preacher of the gospel; John Norton, who exem- 
plified and taught the Christian life, and who bore a 
name, as we know, honored from that day to this in 
the church and in letters; Ebenezer Gay, who, in 
spite of the record that has been read against him, 
sounded almost the first evangel of that more liberal 
faith which found its highest expression in Charming, 
and its fruit in the absolute religious freedom of to- 
day ; Henry Ware, another revered Unitarian name, 
suggestive of the refinement of learning and of the 
culture of college halls ; Joseph Richardson, who, 
preceding John Ouincy Adams in Congress, thus 
reunited Church and State ; Calvin Lincoln, still the 
beloved neighbor and friend of us all, as saintly in 
his life as he is in his face and in the pulpit, whom 
God has spared to enjoy this day, and whom may 
God spare yet for many years to receive the un- 
bounded respect and love of all, irrespective of 
church or creed, who know him ! and Edward Au- 
gustus Horton, who has transferred the promise of 
his brilliant talents from this to a larger, but we will 
not admit a better, sphere ! Speaking for the Com- 
monwealth, — well may she cherish this church in 
high and in sacred esteem, which, through two such 
men as Peter Hobart and Ebenezer Gay, has put, in 
the spirit of the highest independence, its mark upon 
the tablets of civil liberty and of religious thought. 



102 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

In that spirit of independence I find the seeds of 
this patriotic and free-thinking people and Common- 
wealth. In that spirit of independence I find even 
the causes of that separation, — a separation which 
exists to-day only in tradition and name, and no 
longer in the hearts of either people, — that separa- 
tion which resulted in the formation of the society 
of which the venerable Dr. Miles is now the honored 
pastor. In that spirit of independence I find, too, 
the seeds of the paradox of that toleration, blooming 
out from the meanest intolerance, which has made 
this land an asylum for all mankind, — not alone 
for all classes of men, but for all shades of opinion ; 
and I find the seeds of that free inquiry which has 
laid the whole world, the world of matter as well as 
the world of soul, open to the touch of science and 
philosophy, — of that education, that common public 
education, which has made the dream of equality a 
homely fact in the life of every man, — of that poli- 
tics which makes ours indeed a government of all 
the people. 

Were I to speak, or were it mine to speak at 
length to-day, my theme should be the relation of 
this venerable Meeting-house to civil liberty and to 
civil government, which have here always gone hand 
in hand with the worship of God, whose liberty mak- 
eth free, and in whose behalf this Parish has sent 
out its sons in their country's defence, alike in the 
War for American Independence and in the War for 
Union and Personal Freedom, and has sent its rep- 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 103 

resentatives not alone to the field, but also to the 
councils of the Commonwealth and of the Republic; 
I would speak of this building as a school, as an acad- 
emy of training for the duties of citizenship, as it has 
been for the duties of public life and as it has been 
for the integrity of our town and of our State. And 
is that not typified in the congregation which meets 
here to-day, and in the environments, — the natural 
environments which surround us this midsummer 
afternoon, in this happy and prosperous and enlight- 
ened community of Christian homes, amid this ac- 
tivity of life and growth where once the quiet of 
the forest slept? And then — I love to refer to 
it — this clustering and beautiful burying-ground, 
where death loses its terrors in the softness and 
repose beneath the beautiful leaves, and where sleep 
not only the first settlers of Hingham, but the 
good men, great and true, who came after them, — 
those early pastors of this church ; the Thaxters of 
Provincial fame in civil and military life ; that 
Revolutionary hero already referred to, General 
Lincoln, who received the sword of Cornwallis at 
Yorktown ; and John Andrew, the War Governor, 
so dear to Massachusetts that only his name can 
be spoken but never yet expression given to the 
love she bore him, — all these a part of the spirit 
of the thing we commemorate, and so all one with 
this Parish and these hallowed walls. Can we take 
in all this, and all that the day recalls and puts us in 
harmony with for two hundred and fifty years, and 



104 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

not rise to something of the nobler levels of pur- 
pose and of feeling which have been suggested, and 
which should be the true lesson of this hour ? 

In 1869 Mr. Lincoln, the pastor of this society- 
then and now, said, I remember, in the opening of 
his discourse : " Only twelve years are wanting to 
complete two centuries since our fathers first assem- 
bled for Christian worship beneath this roof." And 
lo! the circle is rounded, and the centuries are full. 
It will be only a span when some one will say, 
though we shall not hear it : " Only twelve years are 
wanting to complete three centuries." And almost 
as soon as spoken the finger of Time will point to 
their fulfilment also. What shall these centuries 
say of us ? I trust that the word will be, as ours has 
been to-day, one not of reproach, but of honor, — 
of a church still inspiring the most enlightened and 
fearless faith, but also a pure life ; of a town still 
loyal to good morals and advanced education ; of a 
State still fortunate in the happiness, the intelli- 
gence, the progress of its people. In one prayer we 
all do surely unite, — that these walls may then still 
rise ; that this roof may then still echo back the 
voice of preacher and of choir; and these rough- 
hewn timbers may still be wreathed with the mem- 
ory of 1 68 1, of 1 78 1, — yes, of 1881. Mr. Solomon 
Lincoln, whose name has been spoken, — a distin- 
guished son of this town, and her historian, a man 
loyal to her honor, and to this church, her chiefest 
pride, — is present with us to-day, and none with a 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 



I05 



finer enthusiasm, not in person, but in spirit and 
also so happily in the presence of his sons. May I 
not, alike in tribute to him whom we respect and 
whose absence from infirmity we all deplore, and 
also in expression of all your hearts, quote again 
the words which the orator of the morning quoted, 
but which he did not credit to Mr. Lincoln, — words 
which he put upon the seal of this parish, — and say 
that whether the third century shall be fulfilled, or 
the fourth, or the tenth : " Let the work of our 
Fathers stand." Let it indeed stand in every sacred 
timber of this venerable house, and yet not for its 
own sake only ; for, deeply as we venerate it, it is 
only the emblem of the spirit of piety and true 
worth, which have been crystallizing within the 
sound of this bell for two centuries. Let the work 
of the fathers stand rather in those foundations of 
truth and of character upon which this church must 
be founded, or it shall fall as a house which is built 
upon the sand. Let the work of the fathers stand 
in those foundations of truth and of character which 
it is the duty of our generation not to impair but to 
broaden with every new and fresh need and enlarge- 
ment of advancing time. 



The Chairman. — Rev. Peter Hobart, first minister of 
this church, had a numerous progeny. He mentions fif- 
teen children in his will ; and among them one, the Rev. 
Nehemiah Hobart, became the minister of Newton, the 
successor of the son of the apostle Eliot; and we welcome 



106 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

to Hingham to-day one who is a lineal descendant of this 
same Nehemiah Hobart and of our Peter, born in Medfield, 
an old town like our own, but since returned to the home 
of his ancestors in Newton, — the Hon. Mr. BlSHOP, Pres- 
ident of the Senate. 



ADDRESS OF HON. ROBERT R. BISHOP. 

Mr. Chairman, — I have no doubt that there are 
many descendants of Peter Hobart, in addition to the 
venerable minister of this parish, — many descend- 
ants of Peter Hobart in this town, and in this audi- 
ence, who have remained true to the original spot 
and to the old church, and have never strayed away 
from either. I, too, am his descendant, in the sixth 
generation, and I hope that I shall be forgiven for 
having strayed away so far as to have been born 
elsewhere, and to have spent all my life away, so 
that I have not more than once or twice been in the 
town, and never until now in this, the venerable 
sanctuary of her generations past and of her genera- 
tions to come, — her pride and jewel. As the pre- 
siding officer has said, Peter Hobart had many 
children ; of necessity they must scatter. Accord- 
ingly, you know that one settled in Scituate, one in 
Groton, one on Long Island, one, I believe, at Had- 
dam in Connecticut, and others elsewhere. My own 
ancestor, the eighth son, was settled in Newton as 
the second minister of the First Church, as the suc- 
cessor of John Eliot, Jr., son of the apostle, who 
was cut oft in the flower of his life at the age of 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. IOJ 

thirty-two. This Hobart also had a numerous prog- 
eny, and the hand of one of his daughters was 
sought by a stranger from the Connecticut Colony. 
The wedding took place, and the pair took up their 
journey on horseback through the paths of the for- 
ests, up the banks of the winding Charles to the 
high land at its source, then southward down the 
valley of the Blackstone and across the Quinnebaug 
to the hill country in the northeastern part of Con- 
necticut, where the new town of Killingly had been 
established. The eloquent and classical orator of 
this morning said, as you will remember, that in all 
researches into the productions of the Colonial time, 
there had never been found a love-poem. That 
journey through that picturesque country was a love- 
poem, if not in a book written by the granddaughter 
of Peter Hobart, yet in her life; and, with somewhat 
different views as to the sternness of the life in that 
time, I think I might say, and you might agree, that 
there were, in the fibre and tissue of society, although 
not in form, many love-poems of that day. But I 
am obliged to confess that this granddaughter took 
upon that journey a very grave and sedate book. 
What other possessions she carried, of what in other 
respects her dowry consisted, I know not ; but her 
father had given her a great Bible, the Old and 
New Testaments in separate volumes, and these she 
carried in her saddle-bags on the journey, and they 
lay for many years upon the desk of the meeting- 
house at Killingly, and were used by her husband 



108 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

in his ministrations from that pulpit. Descendants 
of this pair, after several generations, found their 
way back again to Massachusetts ; and at length 
one of the descendants of Abigail Hobart, by a new 
and accelerated method of conveyance, though I 
will not say by an improved method, brought the 
old Bibles back again to Newton, from which she 
had taken them, and they are now my own posses- 
sion, in my house, not far from the spot of her 
fathers house, — as you may believe, a precious 
heirloom. 

But although this is a day in which reminiscences 
may be to some extent indulged and aired in public, 
yet they interest others, I am aware, much less than 
those immediately concerned. We are all concerned, 
however, in the character of our fathers, and in the 
institutions which they planted. Those institutions 
grow out of their characters and partake of them. 
What our fathers were, the State they founded has 
been, and is. 

The delineation of Peter Hobart's qualities to-day 
has been so striking that I hardly dare to add 
my own estimate. The orator called him valiant ; 
your late minister called him fearless, heroic. Peter 
Hobart was an earnest and resolute man. By all 
accounts he had great force of character. This 
was doubtless manifest in his conduct of the re- 
ligious affairs of this church and parish. It was 
conspicuously manifest also in civil affairs. It is 
unfortunate, as has been observed by the venerable 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 109 

historian of Hingham, Mr. Lincoln, — whose ab- 
sence from this festival in which we all know his 
heart is, as has been observed by Mis Excellency, is 
matter of great regret, — it is unfortunate that the 
principal account of the great controversy in which 
lie was engaged with the father and founder of the 
Colony, Governor \\ inthrop, comes to us through 
the record of his opponent. It is as fair a record as 
an opponent could write, but it cannot be otherwise 
than tempered by the views of its author. If, as 
Mr. Lincoln observes, we could compare the state- 
ments of the two parties to the controversy, we could 
see more vividly the grounds which inspired Hobart 
on his side of the issue. Enough appears, however, 
to show that he was a zealous defender of what he 
believed to be the rights of the people, and that he 
was so thoroughly courageous in his espousal that 
he did not hesitate to impeach the chief man in the 
State. You know the story. The town of Hing- 
ham had chosen a certain man to be the captain of 
its military company, and had sent his name to the 
magistrates for approval. Before action had been 
taken upon the name, the town reconsidered its ac- 
tion and chose another man to be captain, and sent 
in his name. The magistrates were strongly in- 
clined to confirm and appoint the first, and to reject 
the second. Winthrop was especially pronounced, 
and for his conduct in the affair Hobart impeached 
him before the General Court for maladministration 
in office. The contest was long and bitter. Win- 



HO THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

throp was acquitted and exonerated ; Hobart was 
censured and, with many other inhabitants of Hing- 
ham, heavily fined. The town was thoroughly 
aroused, supported Hobart to the utmost, and paid 
his fine. It is of Winthrop's speech at his acquittal 
that De Tocqueville says that it was a fine defini- 
tion of liberty, spoken in the face of a free people. 
Doubtless this event is properly to be considered as 
but an incident in the process of resolution which 
was then sfoins: on in the constitutional affairs of 
the Colony. Rightful liberty, we may believe, was 
the faith and the aspiration of every Puritan colo- 
nist, but the form which it should take was to be a 
growth, and was to be wrought out by the conflict- 
ing views of earnest men. Winthrop and Hobart 
w r ere the representatives of the two parties into 
which the colony was forming, — the more conserv- 
ative and the more radical. The extreme radicals 
scented, in the measures and conduct of the magis- 
trates, tyranny ; and the conservatives deprecated 
the views of the radicals as leading to unrestrained 
action and lawlessness. Winthrop was a conserva- 
tive; Hobart was a radical. He said he did not 
know what he was fined for unless it was for pre- 
suming to petition the General Court, and that the 
fine was a violation of the right of petition. 

It is easy to discover in these two diverging lines 
of thinking, which prevailed at that time, antago- 
nistic forces, either of which, if carried to the ex- 
treme, would have shipwrecked the State, but which, 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. Ill 

welded together as they were by the self-restraint, 
high intelligence, and great purpose of the men of 
the time, have proved its stability and brought to it 
perpetuity. If Hobart's character was rougher than 
Winthrop's, and less broad, it was we may believe 
none the less fearless and faithful and true. On the 
face of the statue of Sam Adams, in what is to be 
called Adams Square, in Boston, is the inscription, 
— written by the matchless pen of another son of 
Hingham, the Governor of the Commonwealth, — 
" A true Leader of the People." Less in degree, 
to be sure, but with equal truth and propriety, he 
could write it as an epitaph for the tombstone of his 
townsman of the olden time, your first minister. 

My friends, what a thing it is, what an inspira- 
tion, to live in a town, one incident in whose history 
has settled for all time a question of constitutional 
liberty! What an inspiration it is on every Sunday 
to come into the house of the fathers and to think, 
if we can, that their spirit and our spirit is one ! 
Friends, the race which produces men of conviction 
has not died out in Hingham. The waters of the 
bay sweep over the sands which contain the kindred 
dust of the earlier and the later time ; and Massa- 
chusetts in the War of the Rebellion, under the lead 
of the great War Governor whom Hingham gave 
her, testifies to our grateful hearts that these quali- 
ties are not for a day, nor for any generation, but 
for all time. 



112 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

The Chairman. — We are all extremely sorry not to 
see Mr. Charles F. Adams, Jr., of Quincy, here to-day. 
He was to be the next speaker, but has been unavoidably 
detained. He would properly be here, being a lineal de- 
scendant from this same John Norton of whom we have 
heard so much, since a daughter of Mr. Norton married 
John Quincy, whence the name of John Quincy Adams. 
I will avail myself, however, of this opportunity, to read a 
letter which the Committee received this morning from 
Rev. Dr. James Freeman Clarke. 



LETTER AND POEM OF REV. JAMES FREEMAN 
CLARKE, D.D. 

Magnolia, Mass., Aug. 7, 1S81. 

To Messrs. Arthur Lincoln, Quincy Bicknell, George Lincoln, 
and Henry C. Harding, Committee. 

Gentlemen, — I find, to my regret, that I shall be unable to 
attend your anniversary. Years ago, when visiting one of your 
townsmen, my friend Albert Fearing, I was much interested in 
the Old Church, and wrote some lines about it, which I meant 
to send you, but have not been able to find them. I have re- 
written them, and venture to send them to you, to be read at your 
anniversary, if any occasion occurs. 

Very sincerely yours, 

James Freeman Clarke. 



TO THE OLD HINGHAM MEETING-HOUSE. 

Gothic and Grecian temples stand around, 

Unmeaning structures on New England ground. 

This house, the whole community outspread, 

Like a great tent of wood, above its head, 

With thought and prayer, counsel and business rife, 

Centre of social, public, parish life ; 

An honest house, of Yankee oak and spruce, 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. I 13 

A type of lowly beauty, born of use; 

Record of that stern, noble, Puritanic day 

When all men walked in one accepted way, 

Lived by one rule, acted and said the same, 

Ere thought brought difference, and divisions came. 

So let it stand ! A page of history, 

And prophecy of better days to be ; 

When Freedom, cause of strife, shall make strife cease, 

Attaining larger union, better peace ; 

When part}- discords, petty rancors, fall 

Before the All in One, the One in All ! 



Mr. CLARENCE E. Hay then sang the air, " It is 
Enough," from Mendelssohn's " Elijah." 

The Chairman. — We shall all be glad to hear from the 
"Second Precinct" of Hingham, Conohasset, and I take 
great pleasure in introducing to you the worthy successor 
of a grandson of Peter Hobart, — the Rev. Nehemiah 
Hobart, who became the minister of the Second Precinct, 
— Mr. Osgood. 



ADDRESS OF REV. JOSEPH OSGOOD. 

Mr. Chairman, — With your permission I will try 
to go back two hundred years from to-day and to im- 
agine the occasion which was then celebrated, when 
this house was first erected, when there was no Co- 
hasset in one sense, no "Second Precinct." About 
nine or ten years before this church was erected, 
the district which is now called Cohasset was 
divided, every inch of it, among the inhabitants of 
Hingham. There were a little over eighty different 



114 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

proprietors. Peter Hobart had two lots of it, and the 
whole precinct, divided into three divisions, the first, 
the second, and the third, was apportioned in nar- 
row mathematical strips to the inhabitants of Hing- 
ham, and the places were marked out for roads. 
One road is represented as going from Scituate 
Pond to Bread and Cheese Tree (where Bread and 
Cheese Tree was, some of the antiquaries of Hing- 
ham can tell me), drawn in a straight line where it 
would now be impossible, I think, for man or horse 
to pass comfortably. The inhabitants of that part 
of the town united in building this church ; and 
at that time they did not come here as guests, they 
came as members of this society, — inhabitants of 
this town who had joined their money, their sym- 
pathies, their interest, their strength, in erecting 
this church. If those who did the work, or con- 
tributed the timber of the church, had left their 
names on the posts or timbers, as the makers of 
the monuments of Egypt and of the old statues 
and temples of Greece were accustomed to do, 
I have no doubt, in uncovering these old timbers 
and old posts, we should find the name of Lincoln, 
or of Pratt, or of Bates, marking some of the 
timbers contributed from " Little Hingham," as it 
was then called ; and, by the way, if you look upon 
an old map, made before the settlers of Hingham 
had ever left their quiet homes in Hingham, Eng- 
land, you will find Cohasset marked down, indicat- 
ing its present locality; before even the Pilgrims 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 



"5 



came to Plymouth, you will find the name of Co- 
hasset, or Conohasset, on the map. They assisted 
in building this church, they worshipped in this 
house; and we in Cohasset have always the same 
right to call it ours as you have, for we formed part 
of the same town. But after thirty or forty years 
it was found that it was too long a walk, or too long a 
ride — seven miles perhaps — from Cohasset. There 
were merely rocky paths, winding among the crags 
and hills, where a foot passenger found difficulty 
in making his way, and where some enthusiastic 
worshipper, perhaps, was able to take his wife on a 
pillion behind him, — roads which never admitted of 
a carriage, which were impassable to a carriage; and 
the people all about Little Hingham, or Cohasset, 
found it very hard to come to meeting in rain and 
in snow, walking or riding from five to six or seven 
miles in this hard way and on these hard roads; and 
so after about thirty years they petitioned the town 
to be permitted to be setoff as a precinct, — to have 
their taxes remitted to them, so that they could 
have a minister of their own; and the town — and 
perhaps this was one of the very first trials this 
society had to endure — unhesitatingly voted to 
refuse this request. They petitioned again and the 
town refused ; and then they went to the General 
Court and brought the matter there, and I think the 
Court after a while gave them the right to form a 
distinct precinct. But there was one condition on 
which alone this old pari>h was willing their petition 



Il6 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

should be granted, and that was that they should 
settle an Orthodox minister. The town which was 
just about to settle such a genial, liberal man as 
Dr. Gay, the Father of Liberal Christianity in New- 
England, the leader of the Unitarian movement, 
insisted, that Cohasset should have an Orthodox 
minister. The precinct of course voted against 
that; they would not settle an Orthodox minister 
at the dictation of the town. I do not suppose the 
people of Cohasset had any great objection to Or- 
thodoxy. They were probably as Orthodox as the 
old parish ; but they did not want to be dictated to. 
If they had a minister, they wanted to have one of 
their own selection, and he might preach just such 
doctrine as they chose ; the old parish should not 
dictate. Again the town was willing they should 
have a minister if they would only have an Ortho- 
dox minister. " No, we will not have such a min- 
ister ; we will have such a minister as we want ; " 
and by the aid of the General Court — I suppose 
they had a good governor who helped them along 
— at last their petition was granted and they were 
permitted to have a church. By the way, they had 
built a little meeting-house of their own before they 
were permitted to be a separate parish. 

But what did this old parish do? They must 
have lamented the loss of the whole precinct. 
They missed these men and women who, through 
rain and snow and rocky ways, Sunday after 
Sunday, had come to this old church. And what 



AFTERNOON EXERCIS] I 17 

do you suppose they did? I have been informed 
that they immediately enlarged the church. They 
meant to have it said by the people in town, 1 
think, that they should not have the excuse of not 
finding room in the church urged as any ground 
for forming a new society. And then, after ;, 
the South Parish separated, and I have been told 
that they did just the same tiling, and enlarged the 
church again ; and if they had enlarged the church 
every time a new society went off, this church 
would have been a cathedral by this time. 

I want to say a word about one of the old min- 
isters. It seems to me quite an effort has been 
made to smooth over good old Peter Hobart. Now 
I think Mis Excellency Governor Long ought to 
thank his stars that he has not Peter Hobart to 
deal with, for I think he would find a harder case 
than he finds in any minister in Massachusetts at 
the present day. The fact is, Peter Hobart had a 
good deal of human nature in him, and although 
he was a saint yet he had his peculiarities. There 
was a little quarrel between one of my ancestors 
and Peter Hobart which has hardly been settled yet. 
I have been informed that in the old parish records 
there is an entry to this effect : " Baptized [on such 
a clay] children of old John Otis." Well, Peter 
Hobart and "old " John Otis did not agree ("old" 
John Otis was my ancestor, you will remember!), 
and to show his spite he entered this record : " Bap- 
tized [on such a day] children of old John Otis." 



Il8 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

Now, as a mark of the progress of truth and broth- 
erly love and liberty, I do not believe brother Lin- 
coln ever entered such a record to manifest his 
spite towards any of his parishioners. I do not 
know whether John Otis was here when the church 
was built ; I think Peter Hobart was too much for 
him, and so he moved to Weymouth. But I will say, 
however, that the quarrel is likely to be harmonized, 
for Mr. Lincoln (one of his descendants) and I have 
got along very well ; and two of my children have 
married descendants of old Peter Hobart, and now 
we expect to have harmony in the family. 1 

I wish to say a word more. Somehow or other 
I seem to be a kind of patriarch here. Mr. Lincoln 
has not preached here as long as I have been accus- 
tomed to stand in this pulpit by about twelve or 
thirteen years, so I look upon him as rather a new- 
comer ; and these white-headed men are mere boys, 
you know, to my ministerial history here. And I 
was a little amused at those men and women up in 
the gallery attempting to imitate old-fashioned sing- 
ing : but don't I remember these men when they 
were boys almost, — when they came here with their 
bass-viols and clarinets and all those instruments, 
and Sunday after Sunday, and year after year, I 
used to hear them? It sounded very natural to 
me, and I congratulate them on being able to pre- 
serve their voices and interesting singing so long. 
And then this does not seem to me to be the old 

1 An examination of Hobarl's Diary does not verify this tradition. 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. I 19 

church after all. I sec where the broad aisle used 
to be. The rope by which the bell was rung came 
down in the centre of the church. Here were the 
square pews. I remember John Quincy Adams 
coming here and making a speech a few years 
ago, the only address I ever heard delivered in 
the old church before it was remodelled ; and 1 
remember the re-dedication — that was only a few 
years ago — when Dr. Gannett was here; and I 
can remember, and 1 shall never forget, the ride 
we had after the services, when it blew so that his 
friends were afraid it would blow over the carryall, 
when the rain came down in torrents, when trees 
were blown clown and filled up the way, and he, in 
the darkness of the night, having lost his hat, made 
his way to the house of brother Lincoln, who made 
him comfortable. 

I will not take up your time in saving anything 
more ; but if I were tempted to tell all that I could 
remember, to speak of the men and women whom I 
used to see here Sunday after Sunday, who have 
now passed into the higher life of the spiritual 
world, I could bring up remembrances that are dear 
and precious to many of you. And I would thank 
these gentlemen who referred to the father of our 
presiding officer, whom I have been thinking of 
ever since I have been sitting in this church, and 
who I know, if he were at his prime in body and 
mind, would be the principal leader of this cele- 
bration. 



120 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

The Chairman. — We have spoken of those who built 
this house as farmers ; and we are proud to know that 
one of their lineal descendants, Dr. Loring, whom we are 
always glad to see here, believes in this occupation of 
farming, and will do what he can to encourage it in his 
present office as Commissioner of Agriculture. I have 
the pleasure of introducing Dr. Loring. 



ADDRESS OF HON. GEORGE B. LORING. 

Mr. Chairman, — I am much obliged to you, Sir, 
and your associates for an invitation extended to 
me to participate in this occasion on account of my 
hereditary interest in the founding of this early 
Puritan church in Massachusetts. It is indeed an 
honorable distinction to be able to trace one's line- 
age, through generations of earnest endeavor, back 
to the time when the sustaining power was a stern 
religious faith, and the moving force was undying 
fortitude and courage. And so I have always cher- 
ished the name of Thomas Loring, who landed here 
just two centuries before I graduated at Harvard 
College ; who was among the earliest sufferers in 
the Indian wars ; who set me an early example, 
Sir, of official distinction by being appointed con- 
stable of Hull; and whose son kept the faith 
of his fathers by joining his brethren in the erec- 
tion of this edifice, dedicated to the worship of 
God according to the dictates of their own con- 
sciences, as their stay and staff in the trials by which 
they were surrounded. But I have a stronger and 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 121 

more immediate interest in the faith and influence 
and counsel of this church than what belongs to its 
mere foundation. The religious teachings of my 
early ancestors, to whom I have just alluded, modi- 
fled and developed by time, entered into the mind 
and heart of one of their descendants, who was 
selected by the pastor of this church (so long distin- 
guished for both civil and ecclesiastical service) to 
take charge of the First Church in Andover, now 
North Andover, as a Republican in politics (and that 
was a part of his qualifications) and a Liberal Chris- 
tian of the transition period of 1810. In Thomas 
Loring, one of the founders of this church, I have a 
dim and shadowy interest; but for Bailey Loring, — 
the young descendant of Thomas Loring on one side 
and of John Alden on the other, the graduate of Brown 
University, the favored son of a struggling Pilgrim 
family, the early defender of Unitarian Christianity, 
the advocate of progressive political and theological 
thought as understood by your own venerable pastor 
of that day, — I have that deep and undying affection 
which a grateful son always feels for a kind and wise 
and honored father. The close relations, established 
seventy years ago between this religious parish and 
the First Church of Andover, give this occasion a 
peculiar interest to us who respect the personal inti- 
macy existing at that period ; and also to that great 
and growing mass of Christians who now feel the 
value of that broad and sustaining faith which binds 
us into one brotherhood, as children of one Father, 



122 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

with a bond unknown to forms and doctrines, and 
with a tie untarnished by "clouds of doubt and 
creeds of fear." 

In the lives and labors of the founders and fol- 
lowers of this church, to whom I have alluded, in 
the path which leads from the theological devotion 
of the early days to the independent protest of the 
last generation, and on to the interpenetrating liber- 
ality which characterizes all religious thought and 
aspiration in our own day, there may be found a 
chapter of ecclesiastical history unequalled in its 
influence upon the welfare of mankind since Chris- 
tianity was planted on the earth. The fathers who 
built this Meeting-house were strong mainly in their 
spirit of independence and their Protestant determi- 
nation. They were bold, hardy, defiant, — determined 
to resist civil and ecclesiastical tyranny alike. They 
brought with them, it is true, the stern doctrines of 
the " young French refugee " who had engrafted 
his theological dogmas and his ecclesiastical disci- 
pline upon the Republic of Geneva, and had there 
" established a party of which Englishmen became 
members and New England the asylum." They 
mortified the flesh ; they believed in a personal 
Devil, and fought him ; they trembled before the 
" Almighty vengeance ; " they had not learned the 
true relations which should exist between the Church 
and the State in a free republic ; but their devo- 
tion to civil and religious freedom prepared their 
minds for all human progress, and laid the foun- 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 123 

elation of that quality of religious faith which is 
represented by this church and has tempered the 
theological air of the age in which we live. It is 
easy, my friends, to see how Arminianism, identified 
a> it was with the cause of popular liberty, — that 
is, it is easy for old theologians to see, I mean, Sir, 
not for the common people, but for us who studied 
theology, — how the independent and thoughtful 
mind of New England, identified as it was with the 
cause of popular liberty, found a foothold here. 
That is very easy, notwithstanding the stringency of 
Puritan theology. It is easy to see how the indepen- 
dent and thoughtful mind of New England advanced 
one step further, and became the seed-bed of Uni- 
tarianism, with Priestly as its advocate, and Chan- 
ning as its prophet. That is easy to see. It was 
not difficult, Sir, to lead the sons of the Puritans 
and the Pilgrims, who were working out the prob- 
lem of free societv on the soil of New England, 
away from the hard and gloomy theology which 
had been taught them in their childhood. It was 
not difficult to lay aside the discussions on election, 
justification, redemption, "fixed fate, free-will, fore- 
knowledge absolute," for the great problems, " as to 
the Divine being and character, human nature, its 
destiny and duties, Christ and Christianity, society 
and its various relations," to the solution of which 
Channing consecrated his life, and which led him 
to that warm and living faith whose principle is 
Divine love, and " whose fruit is love to man." 



124 



THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 



Filled at the hour of their landing on these shores, 
and all along the generations which followed, with 
the thought which he so forcibly expressed, that 
" an established church is the grave of intellect," 
they advanced easily to mental and spiritual eman- 
cipation, and laid the foundation of an American 
Church, in which every form of faith may find a 
home, warmed by love and invigorated by the life- 
giving air of perfect freedom ; and that is the 
American Church of to-day, in which all are breth- 
ren and all are Christians. 

The two hundred years during which this un- 
assuming and venerable structure has stood on this 
spot have been years of great intensity, activity, and 
interest, and nowhere have they been more intense, 
active, and interesting than here. The change 
which has been wrought in forms of faith, in the 
structure of society, in the organization of the State, 
in all provision for man's comfort and culture, in the 
supply of means by which life can be more civilized 
and refined, is so great that the record seems fabu- 
lous. But tell me, if you can, what greater miracle 
has been worked in all these years than the growth 
of an empire of civil and religious freedom, — in 
whose infancy this structure was reared by pious 
hands for man's encouragement and support in the 
ways of righteousness ; and in whose vigorous man- 
hood it now stands as part of that powerful system 
of government which holds the foremost place among 
the nations of the earth, — as powerful as religion 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 125 

and education, free to all, can make it. The power 
of the meeting-house and the school-house on this 
Continent, — who can estimate it ? Who can tell the 
revolutions they have roused, the progress they have 
inspired, the strength they have imparted to the 
nation, the high tone and pure purpose they have 
given the people in peace and in war and in every 
great crisis ? And here may this sacred temple 
stand for generations yet to come, — a monument 
of the lofty faith and purpose of the fathers, and a 
witness of those still advancing steps which the heirs 
of those institutions we now cherish will take in the 
work of perfecting their great inheritance, as a 
moral and religious and thoughtful people. 



The Chairman. — I have the pleasure of introducing 
the Rev. Ki;i.\ FRANCIS of Cambridge, a gentleman in 
whose veins flows the blood of two of our large families, — 
the Marshes and the Herseys. 



ADDRESS OF REV. EBEN FRANCIS. 

I am warned by that dial that I must be very brief 
in the words which I shall utter. But, first of all, I 
must acknowledge, as did my friend who preceded 
me, the gratitude I feel towards this Committee for 
inviting me to come here and be present with you 
on this occasion, and to stand here by the altar 
where my mother in her infancy was brought and 
received the baptismal waters ; and where, too, her 



126 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

brothers and sisters each in turn received the like 
blessing. Here at this shrine worshipped her 
parents, as did all the family until they passed to 
other places of residence. I learn by the record that 
at the first settlement of this place, in the division of 
lands, there was a George Marsh who received his 
lot. He brought hither with him three children, 
,two sons and a daughter. In about twelve years 
he died. Soon after — within a year or two — the 
son Thomas married. Seven years only went by, 
— or eight, perhaps, — when he too surrendered his 
life, leaving a lad bearing the name of Thomas. 
It was that Thomas who is mentioned in the list 
of those who were assessed for the raising of the 
funds for the erection of this structure. In turn 
he rears a family, and his grandson, the fourth 
Thomas in succession, about the time of his father's 
death, becomes a student of Harvard College. He 
graduates in due time, and within a few years after 
he is appointed the librarian of the College. After 
some five or six or seven years he becomes a tutor, 
or, I suppose we should say to-day, a professor in 
the College. He holds that position for a quarter 
of a century. I understand it was the law during 
that period that no one holding such a position in 
the College should be permitted to contract mar- 
riage ; so he lived unmarried through his quarter of 
a century. When he closed his relation as tutor 
or professor, remaining, however, for many years a 
Fellow of the College, he married, but had no chil- 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. I 27 

dren. Fortunately, in the family there was another 
son, twelve years his junior, by the name of John. 
That John made good the deficiency for his family 
and had among the boys a Thomas, whom I well re- 
member. The other sons all bore good old Scripture 
names. One of them was Lot — Lot Marsh ; he 
was my grandfather; and my earliest recollections 
carry me back to my childhood — almost infancy, 
— when I was brought hither to visit my grand- 
parents ; and as soon as it was possible for me to 
toddle along, to get to church in company with my 
grandfather and grandmother, I was brought into 
this edifice. I remember well the old pews to which 
allusion has been made, and how we used to sit, not 
far from the door; and how I enjoyed coming to 
this old church and sitting in those pews, because 
I could peek through the railing that was around 
the top of the pews, and see the minister away up 
there under that sounding-board, — good old Parson 
Richardson. 

Of course these associations come clustering 
about me now. I should be glad to speak of the 
influence they have had upon me from that time to 
this. I have an impression that the influences which 
wrought upon the character of these several genera- 
tions of the Marshes, as I have mentioned them, 
stretching along one after the other down to my 
grandfather, all of whom came and faithfully wor- 
shipped in this parish, first in the old church, and 
then in this, — must have been very effective. Cer- 



128 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

tainly old Parson Gay must have infused the spirit 
of patriotism into my grandfather, so that one who 
was naturally so timid, as the good people have been 
wont to tell me he was, was induced to shoulder his 
musket and become a soldier of the Revolution. 
You would not suppose he was a timid man, when 
I tell you I have heard it said there was a list of 
the prisoners in Bermuda sent to General Lincoln, 
when he was at Charleston, for exchange of prison- 
ers, and he found the name of this Lot Marsh of 
Hingham. General Lincoln knew Lot Marsh of 
Hingham, but did not conceive it possible that he 
could be in the war and in prison ; nevertheless, 
at a venture, Marsh's name was put down among 
others who might be exchanged ; and so he was 
taken to Charleston, and in due time sent home. I 
don't bear the name, you see, of the Marshes. 

Like influences to those which wrought upon the 
generations on the Marsh side of my lineage, I 
think, must have wrought on the other side, in the 
old Puritan churches ; for about the same year, or 
the year following the landing of the first on the 
Marsh side here, Richard Francis, my ancestor on 
the other side, came to Cambridge, which is now 
my home. And it is only within three months 
that the dwelling he occupied two hundred and 
forty years ago — of which he became the pur- 
chaser in 1644, I think — was razed to make room 
for another edifice for Harvard College. He was 
a member of that old parish at Cambridge ; his 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. I 29 

sons in good time married in Medford and became 
members of the old parish in that town; and in due 
time their descendants — my father among them 
— had their residence in Beverly, and were con- 
nected with the old parish there ; and the frame of 
the old parish church in Beverly, where my father 
was wont to worship, is still standing, though it has 
been modernized since. 

I want to show that there was a current appar- 
ently running through these two strains of my char- 
acter which may have influenced me in a measure, at 
about the time I was forming my theological views, 
so that I became a Universalist. I believe none of 
that denomination have spoken here to-day. It was 
the influence of the preaching of the old ministers 
of this church and of those churches which I have 
mentioned, which have all become, as this one has. 
Unitarian, that wrought, I presume, in the spirit 
of my father and my mother (for she became a 
Universalist also), and through them in mine, so 
that I became a Universalist. 

And now I want to give another word of tribute 
to our Unitarian friends. Our denomination must 
confess that before we, as a denomination, had a 
being, before John Murray (whom we have been 
wont to speak of for more than a century as the 
Father of Universalism in America) had visited this 
country and preached the distinctive truth of the 
ultimate holiness and happiness of all mankind, 
that doctrine had been proclaimed from what we 

9 



130 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

to-day call Unitarian pulpits. Jonathan Mayhew, 
of the West Church in Boston, many years before 
Murray came to Boston, preached the doctrine of 
the ultimate salvation and redemption of all God's 
children. Dr. Chauncy, minister of the First 
Church of Boston, wrote a strong argumentative 
volume, which, I think, was not published until after 
his death, and then, I believe, in England, — a very 
strong argumentative volume, for that day, in de- 
fence of this same central truth ; so I think we as 
a denomination should remember our gratitude on 
this anniversary for what must have taken place 
centuries ago through the preaching of those who 
occupied what now are Unitarian pulpits. 

I want to acknowledge a little personal indebted- 
ness to Hingham. When I was about twelve years 
old my parents moved to Cambridge, and it so hap- 
pened that for several years the building nearest to 
us in one direction was the building where they 
make Unitarian ministers, — Divinity Hall. In the 
opposite direction was the residence of the father of 
your historian of this morning (now his residence), 
and a professor in that theological school. In the 
other direction, close to my father's home, were the 
dwellings of good old Dr. Ware, your former pastor, 
and his son, Henry Ware, Jr., a native of Hingham. 
There must have been something in the atmosphere 
of that region, I think, that wrought upon me and 
affected me somewhat beneficially. 

I remember very well I was thrown then into con- 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 131 

tact with the students who were at the Divinity 
School. They seemed to take a little interest in 
me personally. There were among them Dr. Bel- 
lows, now of New York, Dr. Bartol, now of the 
West Church in Boston, Theodore Parker, Dr. Liv- 
ermore, who is president of the Meadville Theologi- 
cal School, — and I might mention others. At that 
same time there was that honored man, then in the 
Law School at Cambridge, Charles Sumner. He 
had a room in Divinity Hall, — I hardly know by 
what grace, but he occupied a room there ; and I re- 
member very well the words of counsel and advice 
he often gave me. For a time he would devote an 
hour, one evening in each week, to my special ben- 
efit. He would lend me some little book that he 
had carefully examined himself, and have me read it; 
and on the particular evening when I returned the 
book, I went through with a system of questioning 
as to my regard for the characters there introduced, 
— whether they were persons who were true to 
principles and to the right; and you may readily 
understand how Charles Sumner would have done 
a thing of that kind. I was but a little boy and 
he a student, but it influenced me afterwards. He 
was trained in the Unitarian home. And when 
I was about to study for the ministry, I received 
much of kindly counsel and advice from good Dr. 
Ware, Jr. 

This has been an occasion of reminiscences, and 
you see I have given my share of them. I don't 



132 



THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 



think I ought to say more. I wanted to bear a 
little testimony to the benefit my ancestors must 
have received here, and to the benefit which I myself 
must have received from Hingham. 

" Lenox " was then sung by the " Old Choir." 

The Chairman. — It is a pleasure, as well as a duty, for 
us to remember on this occasion the Pilgrim Fathers, and 
I have the pleasure of introducing to you Judge RUSSELL, 
a descendant and representative of the Pilgrim Fathers, 
and president of the Pilgrim Society. 

i 

ADDRESS OF HON. THOMAS RUSSELL. 

My friends, — you have heard this afternoon of 
the minister who invited the audience to stay for an- 
other glass. After all the wholesome stimulant 
of which you have so gladly partaken this afternoon 
and this morning, I can only invite you to stay for 
half a glass. 

I thank you for the opportunity of standing 
under this roof and in this presence to say a word 
in honor of the Pilgrim Fathers. It is a good place 
and time for such a word. Long ago we waived any 
technicality which could shut out Hingham from 
the Old Colony ; and as to the difference between 
the Puritan churches of Massachusetts Bay and the 
Independent churches of Plymouth, certainly Peter 
Hobart was as independent as any minister that 
ever dictated to the Church or defied the State. 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 



*33 



The peculiar glory of the Pilgrims is not their 
courage or their endurance, for other adventurers 
have endured and dared almost as much as they. 
Their chief honor is their noble purpose and their 
exceeding faith. They came — so they tell us — 
with no lower design than the founding of a Chris- 
tian Commonwealth which should forever affect 
the destinies of the New World. In these days men 
can hardly believe it. Their work is so great that 
it has become incredible that they designed it. The 
generations that succeeded them knew what the 
fathers proposed; and the Pilgrims themselves — 
Bradford, Winslow, Cushman — declared that their 
object was to deliver this continent from the 
heathendom that possessed it, and from the false 
faith that threatened it. But they were so poor and 
weak that later generations ascribe their coming to 
lower motives, to mere personal ends. A great 
scholar has recently declared that these obscure 
men could not have had large views. " The men 
were tired with laying stone walls, and the women 
were worn out at the wash-tub, and they could not 
have had visions of empire." 

And when, I would ask, when was a divorce de- 
creed between "plain living and high thinking?" 
When was it ordained that the meek should not 
inherit the earth, or even that they should not 
know that their children were to inherit it? A 
hundred familiar lines rush to our lips to refute 
the idea : — 



134 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

" A servant, with this clause, 
Makes drudgery chvine ; 
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, 
Makes that and th' action fine." 

It is the glory of our fathers that poor men, in an 
obscure place, working on a barren soil and under 
a harsh sky, consciously laid the foundation of a 
great nation. Generations of high-minded and well- 
trained farmers — Benjamin Lincoln among them 
— rise up to show that hard work and high thought 
may be combined. It is not true that hard work 
necessarily prevents free and noble thought. The 
old cornfields of Plymouth were a college for truths 
that are sometimes forgotten in the richest uni- 
versities. Even the laying of stone walls does not 
make a prison for the soul. And what Lowell 
says of water is truer of the free spirit of man and 
woman : — 

" From mill and wash-tub I escape, 
And take in heaven my proper shape." 

I spoke of a humble place and poor men. No spot 
on earth is humble where stands a man in earnest 
for any truth of God. No man is poor that is en- 
riched by faith and ennobled by a high purpose. 
Such was the faith of our fathers that, in 162 1, 
Cushman dared to preach and to publish the proph- 
ecy: "Yea, and the memory of this action shall 
never die!" He was not congratulating his audi- 
ence that they had outrun the constable. He was 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 135 

giving thanks for the foundation of a Christian 
State. And only a few years after, a humbler pil- 
grim was moved to engrave upon a rock two lines 
that I love to repeat : — 

"The Eastern nations sink ; their glory ends ; 
And empire rises where the sun descends." 

Surely this is the very sublimity of faith. And we 
need not discuss the details of that faith. Perhaps 
no church in New England adopts the exact creed 
of the First Church in Plymouth or in Hingham. 
But they believed something, and believed it with 
all their heart ; and the errors of faith are better 
than the best thoughts of unbelief. To her faith 
in something higher than all material things, Massa- 
chusetts — New England — owes her position as a 
leader. While she holds it, she is strong with the 
strength of ideas. We had a scientific convention 
in Boston a year ago, and the chief scientist of 
them all announced that there is no fact in human 
life which could not be accounted for by chemistry 
or mechanics. Conscience is an alkaloid. What 
old-fashioned people call " sin and death " is only 
an evolution of acids. I wonder what bromide or 
chloride it is that makes a true New Englander 
believe that "Our Fathers' God" guided the Pilgrims 
to these shores, and softened the frosts of winter, 
and soothed the savage heart of Massasoit, and 
watched and guarded the vineyard which He had 
planted ? I would like to have science try, with its 



136 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

scalpel and its batteries, to find just where in the 
frame of a New England man is his faith in a free 
school and an open Bible. I doubt whether science 
can find it in a dead Yankee. I know science could 
never take it out of a live Yankee. This belief in 
ideas is often made a reproach to our State. The 
New York " Herald " says that Massachusetts has 
been crazy for generations. When our senators or 
our governor or our people try to do anything for 
humanity, the newspapers are filled with sarcasms 
about " Massachusetts sentimentality." There is a 
class of men who believe in nothing that cannot be 
weighed and handled. Nothing is of value unless 
it can be quoted in the price-current. Their creed 
is : " Mess beef I know, and clear pork I know, (well 
they may!) but honor, justice, faith, humanity, — 
what fancy terms are these ? " But Massachusetts 
still clings to these sentiments, and if she some- 
times incurs the laughter of men, she wins the 
smile of heaven. This is her inheritance. She was 
born of faith. She was cradled near to Plymouth 
Rock. Gladly as she welcomes all new and liberal 
ideas, she will not lightly forget the lessons of the 
" Mayflower." 

It seems to me that this edifice, so old and so 
carefully cherished, is a good type of New England. 
Its ancient beams tell of the sturdy strength of 
the fathers ; its modern adornments, its bounteous 
supply of light, testify to the progress of their sons. 
Long may the old fabric stand, "four-square to 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. I 37 

every wind " of false doctrine that may blow ; still 
may it welcome every new ray of light from the 
heavens; and still may loving hands guard it from 
every touch of decay, and keep unharmed for com- 
ing generations the precious work of the fathers. 



The Chairman. — I have the pleasure of introducing to 
you the Rev. Mr. BATES of Boston, another honorable de- 
scendant of our early settlers. 



ADDRESS OF REV. LEWIS B. BATES. 

That profound philosopher, Mr. Joshua Billings, 
says that the intellectual capacity of a New England 
audience has never been measured ; but I am think- 
ing, Sir, if he were here to-day he would be in a fair 
way to find out how much it would hold. You have 
kindly said that our ancestors were farmers. Many 
of them were. Some of them were sailors, and 
without the sailors the farmers could not have 
flourished. History says that in 1635 the good ship 
" Elizabeth " cast her anchor in these waters, and 
that a boat was lowered and Clement Bates came on 
shore. A friend met me in the city this morning 
and asked me whither I was bound. I told him I was 
going to-day to look after my property and my faith. 
I had no misgivings in relation to my faith, but 
I had some little misgiving in relation to my prop- 
erty till His Excellency made that matter all clear. 



138 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

You will remember that he said in his speech that 
this property belonged to the citizens of Hingham, 
not to this parish alone ; and my ancestors being citi- 
zens, I am an heir. So please spare these posts, touch 
not a single one ; in childhood and youth they shel- 
tered our fathers and grandfathers ; let them stand 
to shelter our children, and our children's chil- 
dren ! Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay were journeying 
over the Alleghanies, before the days of railroads, and 
walking up one of the steep ascents. The coach 
went on before them and stopped. Mr. Clay went 
back to find his friend Webster, and he found him 
prostrate upon the earth with his ear close to the 
ground. Mr. Clay stooped over him, shook him 
gently, and said : " What are you doing ? " And the 
strong man straightened himself and, standing up in 
the sunlight, said : " Did you hear what I heard ? " 
— " What did you hear ? " said Clay. " I heard 
the tramp of the coming millions ! " The tramp 
heard by Webster has gone across the Alleghanies 
and the Rocky Mountains, and it is on the Pacific 
Shore. In yonder grave the fathers of to-day and 
their children heard it. They saw in this new world 
a new nation ; they saw the Nation of the nations ; 
they saw the Kingdom of the kingdoms, — and it is 
coming. They were but a few dozen, two hundred 
years ago; to-day, fifty millions! One hundred 
years hence, if the ratio goes on, two hundred mil- 
lions, — more than two hundred millions. If the ratio 
goes on, this country will be the most populous of 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. I 39 

all the countries of the globe. Well may we pause, 
then, and contend for " the faith once delivered to 
the saints." In looking over the record when this 
house was built, I find that one of my ancestors, 
according to the record, did what no other man did. 
Perhaps some other man did, but the record has not 
come to me. Three of my ancestors put down £t ) '» 
and one of them, after putting down £$ 6d., puts down 
£1 for his boy. That is the record I find for the 
contribution of a child ; and I find in it the secret of 
success in the Church, in the Republic, — anywhere 
and everywhere. Take care of the child. The 
Church that takes care of her children, her sons, her 
daughters, throws herself into the future. The 
Church that neglects her children, and only strikes 
high, comes down. She is a power to-day ; and her 
chief power is because she takes care of her own — 
her children — in life's morning, and brings them 
up and makes them strong men in her service. 
The thoughtful man must stop and think. In our 
country for six years we have built, every working 
day for these six years, six Protestant churches. 
Now whether you want to think or not, you must. 
If you think, friends, — between eleven and twelve 
thousand churches have been built in this country 
the last six years, and a contribution of over seventy 
millions each year has been given to sustain them ! 
What does it mean ? It means the thought, the in- 
tellectual thought ; it means that these grand, com- 
mon-sense ideas of religion for man, — and not only 



140 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

for man but for men, — and not only for man and 
men but for all men, — have come. And soon, very- 
soon, that grand idea, — the fatherhood of God and 
the brotherhood of man, — through this power and 
this common-sense religion, shall spread over this 
land. It is coming. Yes, it is coming up the hill- 
side, and this whole world is growing brighter. We 
may not live to see its grand triumph, but it makes 
the heart beat quicker. But for fear I shall be here 
one hundred years hence, I stop. I will try and be 
here then, but will not try to detain you till then. 



The Chairman. — A minister, once arranging a pro- 
gramme for church service with his organist, said : " I will 
close with a benediction, and you can play the audience 
out ; " but when the organist began to play, the audience 
would not go. Now a gentleman who finds his name at 
the end of the list might infer, perhaps, that he is to play 
the audience out, but I am quite sure you will find, as in 
the case of the organist when he began to play, that when 
Mr. Lincoln begins to speak he will keep you here for 
some time. 



ADDRESS OF MR. HOSEA H. LINCOLN. 

Mr. Chairman and friends, — In looking at the 
programme this morning for the first time, I won- 
dered why my name was put last, — that is to make 
the last speech ; I tried to think, and it seemed 
to me that it must be on the principle of bicycles, 
— the large wheels first, and the small ones will 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 141 

follow and come last. And then it occurred to me 
that the Committee of Arrangements would like to 
leave off as they began ; and, as they commenced 
with the name of Lincoln, they might want to leave 
off with the same name. I will not speak of my 
ancestors, — all of them ; for if I should I fear that 
posterity would be here before I got through. Now- 
anniversary and centennial occasions are usually of 
an interesting character. Some human enterprises, 
however, are never long-lived enough to have any 
anniversary, much less a centennial. Churches and 
school-houses are certainly not of this character, for 
our far-sighted forefathers planted the church and 
the school-house side by side ; they made educa- 
tion and religion the foundation of their prosperity 
as a community and a nation. This old church has 
stood in the past, and will no doubt stand in the 
future, as the representative of this great idea. She 
has done well to cultivate those sterling qualities that 
make New England what she is. Said a distin- 
guished New York clergyman some years ago, in 
reference to the white churches and the red school- 
houses that dot the hills and valleys of this section 
of our country: "They are the white and the red 
roses of New England." Could we divest ourselves 
of the unpleasant historical associations connected 
with this phrase, it would have a tenfold power and 
beauty. My hope is that there will never be any 
antagonism but always harmony between these roses, 
— our roses, — the white and the red. It becomes 



142 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

us certainly to do our part towards planting these 
twin New England roses, not only throughout our 
own beloved land, but, if possible, in other lands, 
till their fragrance shall fill the world. 

The associations that cluster around this occa- 
sion have already been so fully and so forcibly 
expressed that it would be hard for me to say 
anything or add anything to them without repeti- 
tion. A few personal thoughts and reminiscences 
may not be out of place. I remember well with 
what boyish admiration I used to look up at this 
broad pyramidal structure, with its belfry, and the 
vane above swinging with every turn of the wind. 
Then how interested I was to come into this old 
building and go up into the attic and see the 
sexton tugging away at the bell-rope. Pulling vig- 
orously for a short time, he would "set the bell," 
as it was called ; then, with a short vigorous pull, 
putting on the brakes at the right time, he would 
swing the bell clear round and set it on the other 
side. But what used to trouble me the most was to 
find out how it was that that bell knew exactly when 
to stop tolling, as it did when the minister reached 
the pulpit; for I noticed that just as soon as he 
reached the pulpit that bell stopped pealing. I 
had not then learned the wise saying, that " the par- 
son told the sexton and the sexton tolled the bell." 
One Sunday afternoon I noticed a piece of rope 
coming down through that little circular orifice in 
the wall, and coiling itself on the floor to be ready 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 143 

for a fire if it should happen during the week, and 
I thought I would go up-stairs and investigate. I 
went and investigated, and the problem was solved. 
I saw the whole of the hole ; I had only seen part 
of it before. In looking through that hole you 
could see the minister in the pulpit; then I under- 
stood the whole thing. There was a direct connec- 
tion, by means of the eyesight and the bell-rope, 
between the minister in the pulpit and the tongue 
of the bell. I suppose the moral of this was, that 
when the pulpit speaks, all outside tongues ought to 
be silent. 

Well, another thing used to trouble me a good 
deal ; it was that sounding-board. The pulpit was 
then much higher, and old Parson Richardson's head 
used to reach nearly up to it, as it seemed to me. I 
was a small boy, and I used to wonder whether that 
sounding-board would fall. I thought if it did I 
should like to be there to see. I thought we should 
have a Scripture illustration of the fall of one man 
at least. But it fell not. That sounding-board was 
all sound ; for it rested for its support not so much 
on things below as on things above. 

And then, again, that choir, which has sung so 
splendidly to us to-day in the old style — how I used 
to enjoy that singing! The bass voices in the choir 
most strongly impressed my mind. I remember the 
females sitting on this side and the males on that, 
filling the seats about as they do to-day, with the 
various musical instruments between them. After 



144 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

the altos and sopranos had finished their solos you 
would hear the heavy bass voices come in, led by 
Tom Corbett, backed by the double bass-viol. Why, 
I never heard anything like it since, though I have 
heard the great organ in Music Hall and fifteen 
hundred voices and a hundred instruments, all doing 
their very best ; and I have heard the best music 
at the Coliseum, but it seemed nothing to me as 
that seemed in those days. I think you will admit 
that I was right, for nothing has stirred us all, I 
apprehend, for a long time, as this old music has 
to-day. 

Then I never shall forget old Parson Richardson. 
How I loved and respected that grand old man ! 
Even if I did think that his prayers were sometimes 
a little too long, I hope that my short prayer for 
forgiveness for that opinion will be answered in my 
favor. Why, he seemed to me up there, — away up 
in that high pulpit, — 

" As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 

We know well that in his early ministry the storm 
did howl and beat around him, but I think he 
always kept his head in the sunlight. Time, how- 
ever, has changed many things since those clays. 
As I look round here to-day I see that Time, " the 
fierce spirit of the glass and scythe," has interwoven 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. 



M5 



many threads of gray in the locks of some of the 
worshippers of this church of the fifty years ago. 
"Time knows not the weight of sleep or wearim 
but still on he presses, and night's dee}) darkness has 
no chains to bind his rushing pinions." How he is 
pressing now upon the rapidly fleeting hours of this 
day, and carrying us all along with him ! 

A few words more and I will close, for I see the 
hour is late. Religious freedom was alluded to this 
morning by your venerable pastor in his prayer, and 
by others since. This great principle, I think we 
all ought to remember, was the foundation upon 
which this old church was built. My prayer and 
my hope is that it will always remain woven into 
its very texture and into its very life. What has 
not this great principle done for us and for our 
nation in the past? It gave us our birth in this 
Western World. More than two hundred years 
ago it left oppression, bigotry, and persecution on 
the shores of intolerant England, and crossed the 
wide waste of waters and planted in midwinter its 
seeds upon Pilgrim soil. It sustained our fathers 
in their fierce struggles with the Red Men ; it im- 
parted its wisdom to our nation's councils, its energy 
to her action ; it carried us triumphantly through 
Revolution to Independence. Civil and political 
liberty, and the equal rights of man without any arti- 
ficial distinctions, are its legitimate product. The 
principles established forever in this country by our 
recent Civil War were the children of this same 



146 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

religious liberty. Think not that I emphasize this 
principle too strongly. It is the central idea of our 
Unitarian Christianity. May I not say that it is 
the central idea of Christianity itself? This great 
Protestant right of private judgment in all matters 
pertaining to religion, and the equally universal 
obligation of allowing all others the same liberty, 
— how these great principles stand out like moun- 
tain peaks above the little knolls of human creeds 
that mortal men have reared ! Fear not that these 
ideas will ever die out. It has taken ages to plant 
them in the world, and the ages cannot overthrow 
them. 

Let this grand old Meeting-house then stand in 
the future, as she has in the past, as their exponent. 
Yes, let it stand, untouched by modern art. 

" Its tent roof seems, with its massive beams, 
To scorn the touch of time ; 
And its tapering spire, as it rises higher, 
Uplifts our thoughts sublime." 

Let, then, all the worshippers who shall hereafter 
congregate in this church found their characters on 
ideas and principles as solid as these, and it needs 
no prophet to declare that, in the ages that are to 
come, many centennial wreaths will be hung upon 
the walls of this Old Church, adding lustre to her 
fame and glory to her history. 



AFTERNOON EXERCISES. I 47 

The congregation, accompanied by the organ and musi- 
cal instruments, then sang, to the tunc of " America," " A 
Song for the Old Church," which had been composed 
many years ago by Mr. J AMES HUMPHREY WILDER, a 
native of Hingham. 



HYMN. 

A SONG F( >R THE < >!.!> CHURCH. 

Old Church ! a song to thee, 
Child of antiquity, 

To thee we sing ! 
Around thine aged form 

Sweet recollections swarm, 
And with affection warm, 
To thee they cling. 

Of ages past we learn, 
As to thy face we turn, 

Thou reverend pile ! 
Thy form and features tell 
How wisely and how well 
Our fathers sought to dwell 

beneath Heaven's smile. 

Those stout old beams of oak. 
Unscarred by Time's hard stroke 

As years have flown, 
Thy builders' hope declare. 
Whose toil it was, and prayer, 
That we, their sons, might share 

Blessings their own. 

Their monument art thou. 
Before whose years we bow 

With love sincere : 



148 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

House, that our fathers made, 
Church, in whose sacred shade 
Their forms to rest are laid, 
Thee we revere ! 

There, firm and fast, thou 'st stood, 
Through all vicissitude, 

For long gone years ; 
In faith and hope begun, 
The pride of sire and son, 
A triumph hast thou won 

O'er all thy peers. 

And there long may'st thou stand, 
Unharmed by human hand, 

By age unbent, 
While generations, more 
Than yet have gone before, 
Shall seek thy hallowed door, 

On Heaven intent ! 



The exercises closed with a Benediction by Rev. Calvin 
Lincoln. 



BENEDICTION OF THE MINISTER. 

And now may the God of our Fathers, who is 
also our God, command upon us His blessing, fill 
our hearts with His love, that we may all be one 
in Christ Jesus, our Lord : Amen. 



All ERNOON EXERCISES. 



I 49 



So ended the Day of Commemoration. The large 
audience had remained attentive to the very end of 
the exercises, and even now, at six o'clock, seemed 

reluctant to disperse to their several homes. The whole 
service had been intensely interesting, and was a most 
successful and fitting commemoration of the " Two 

Hundredth Anniversary <>f the Building of the 
Meeting-house." 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Cambridge, May 25, iSSi. 

Dear Mr. Lincoln, — I admit the right of Hingham to call upon 
me for any service I can render her, and I am grateful to her for 
remembering me among her grandchildren. 

I cannot promise to prepare a very elaborate discourse for the 
celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the building of the 
Old Meeting-house, but I will gladly prepare an address of modest 
proportions, if this would be satisfactory to your Committee. 

I beg you to express to the Committee my grateful sense of the 
honor they have done me in asking me to take this part in the 
Celebration, and to assure them that I shall do so rather as a child 
of Hingham than as a stranger. 

Believe me, with great regard, 

Very truly yours, 

C. E. Norton. 
Arthur Lincoln, Esq. 



Messrs. Arthur Lincoln and others, Committee of Invitations, 
I [ingh \\i, .Mass. 

Mr. Adams presents his compliments to the Committee of Invi- 
tations, to attend the interesting ceremonies at the Meeting-house 
on the 8th of next month, and much regrets that the passage of 
time has made so much progress with him as to render long at- 
tendance from home, with a late return, more fatiguing than is 
comfortable for people beyond the age of threescore and ten. 
Otherwise it would give him much pleasure to wait upon Mr. 
Norton and profit by his and other interesting remembrances of 
the records, in which he will abound. I trust I may find it all yet 
in print. Very truly, 

C. F. Adams. 



154 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

Providence, July 6, 1881. 

My dear Sir, — I should have replied immediately to your very 
kind letter of the 28th ult., if I had known whether I was to be at 
home on the 8th of August. 

I am sorry to say now, that I shall be far away from Hingham 
on that memorable day which you are proposing to celebrate. I 
leave home to-day for a journey to Illinois, not expecting to be 
back before the middle of August. I am very sorry to miss so in- 
teresting an historical occasion. I remember well how that weird 
old church used to impress me, when I was a boy and used to go 
and see my aunt, Mrs. Leavitt, in Hingham, and my other Hingham 
relations. I should have counted it a great privilege to say a word 
of the fathers ( and among them, as you remind me, my ancestors) , 
who built the church in the days gone by. If I can get back from 
my journey in time, I shall certainly " put in an appearance " as one 
of the Lincolns, on that occasion, though I cannot promise to be 
there. 

Please make my acknowledgments to your Committee for the 
honor they have done me in inviting me to the Commemoration, 
and accept also for yourself, my dear Sir, the thanks of 

Yours very truly, 

J. L. Lincoln. 

Arthur Lincoln, Esq. 

Plymouth, July 13, 1S81. 
My dear Sir, — I certainly thank you for your kind invitation to 
be present at your Two Hundredth Parish-Anniversary. It would 
be a pleasure to come and listen. I am not sufficiently sure of 
August arrangements, however, to promise myself that pleasure, 
and cannot therefore engage for anything that day. I congratulate 
you that you have a Parish that has had such a long and vigor- 
ous life already, and which also has such an assurance of coming 
centuries. Very truly yours, 

George W. Briggs. 



War Department, Washington, July 13, 1SS1. 
My dear Mr. Lincoln, — It would give me great pleasure if 
I could now accept your invitation to be at Hingham on the 8th 
ot August. It will undoubtedly be an interesting occasion, and 



CORRESPONDENCE. 155 

although my own connection with the early settlers of Hingham is 
doubtful, my acquaintance with those bearing our name has always 
been so pleasant that I would gladly have an opportunity of meet- 
ing more of them. 

My movements are uncertain. I expected to go to the Yellow- 
stone Park in August, but have definitely abandoned the idea on 
account of the illness of the President. He seems to get better 
day by day, and the dreadful calamity which we have so much 
feared seems now remote. If he continues to improve I hope to 
be able to go with my family to New England, and if I am within 
reach of Hingham on the day you name, it will give me pleasure 
to be with you. Sincerely yours, 

Robert T. Lincoln. 
Arthur Lincoln, Esq. 



Beverly Farms, July 14, 1S81. 
Dear Mr. Lincoln, — Your invitation to the Hingham Celebra- 
tion is exceedingly tempting. I should most gratefully accept it if 
I did not feel the need of a few weeks of unbroken vacation, at a 
greater distance than that good old town from my perpetual round. 
As it is I can only send you and yours my best wishes. The occa- 
sion will be one of exceptional interest. It is almost if not quite 
without other example in this country, that the church, and the 
house of worship which has sheltered all its generations, and been 
consecrated by its prayers and its works, its faith and its faithful- 
ness, survive together. Somehow the building gets so saturated 
with Christianity that it is a sacrilege to lay destructive hands 
upon it. It is rare, too, for any religious organization in our 
land to have anything more than a name to live after so many 
years; but the First Church in Hingham is a very child for its 
vitality and its promise and expectation of days and works which 
are vet to be in a world which somehow, spite of all prophets and 
prophecies, persists in living on for the signs and wonders which 
are still to be wrought in it, and, as I am persuaded, in the name 
of Jesus. May all things be propitious on your Feast Day. and the 
time upon which you are to enter be even better and brighter than 
that which has come to an end. With many thanks to the Society 
for their kind invitation, and to yourself, I am, 

Sincerely yours, Rufus Ellis. 



156 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

Boston, July 21, 18S1. 
Mr. Lincoln. 

Dear Sir, — Thanks to yourself and the other members of the 
Committee on Invitations, for your favor of the 1 8th. As a native 
of Scituate, familiar with the Old Meeting-house from my childhood, 
I cordially appreciate your kindness, and should be most happy to 
accept your invitation to the Two Hundredth Anniversary if I 
were to be in this neighborhood. But as I am expecting to be on 
Grand Menan the 8th of August, I shall have to content myself 
with sending up the American flag, in honor of the event, on 
Victoria's dominions. The Queen may well furnish a flag-staff for 
the occasion, as the celebrated Meeting-house was built on her 
territory, and rung its bell on all royal festivals for near a hundred 
years. 

Should you hear any distant " booms " in response to the bright 

things said on the occasion, please credit them to Grand Menan, 

as touched off by 

Your grateful friend, 

W. P. TlLDEN. 



Bridgewater, July 26, 1881. 
Messrs. Arthur Lincoln and others. 

Gentlemen, — I have received your invitation to the Two Hun- 
dredth Anniversary of the building of the Meeting-house. 

It would afford me great pleasure to be with you and to partici- 
pate in the interesting exercises of the occasion, but the infirmities 
incident to an age of almost a century admonish me that my time 
for such enjoyments is passed. 

Thanking you for your kind invitation, I remain with great 
respect, Yours, etc., 

Artemas Hale. 

[Mr. Hale was ninety-eight years of age on October 20, 18S1.] 



Peterborough, N. H., July 28, 1881. 
Messrs. Arthur Lincoln, Quincy Bicknell, George Lincoln, Henry C. 
Harding, Committee. 

Gentlemen, — It would give me great pleasure to accept your 
kind invitation, which I have deferred answering in the hope that 



CORRESPONDENCE. 157 

I might see the way open for me to be with you at your Celebra- 
tion on the cSth of August. But I am obliged to decline your 
invitation, — very reluctantly, for I have many and very interesting 
associations connecting me with your old church and society. 

None of these, however, are more dear to me than the thought 
of your pastor — the kindly, thoughtful, faithful, and saintly man, 
to whom more than one or two generations of parishioners have 
looked up with affectionate and grateful respect. Such a life is 
more eloquent than words. 

But I should be very glad not only to meet him once more, but 
also to hear what Mr. Norton, who has written so learnedly about 
the great churches of Florence and Sienna and Venice, may have 
to say of the Old Meeting-house, in which his father's childhood 
was taught to so good advantage. 

Very truly yours, 

John H. Morison. 



Worcester, July 28, 1881. 
To Messrs. Arthur Lincoln, Quincy Bicknell, George Lincoln, 
Henry C. Harding, Committee of First Parish in Hingham. 
Gentlemen, — I regret that I cannot accept your invitation to at- 
tend the commemoration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the 
building of your Meeting-house on August 8. I can only return 
thanks for your kind thought of me, and congratulate you that you 
preserve with care and honor this ark of your covenant, and the 
principles "that sanctify" it, under the guidance of an apostle 
whose presence has always impressed me like a benediction. 
Very respectfully yours, 

Stephen Salisbury . 



Cambridge, July 30, 1881. 

To ARTHUR Lincoln AND OTHERS, the Committee on Invitations to the Cele- 
bration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the building of the Meeting- 
house of the First Parish. 

Gentlemen, — I thank you cordially for the invitation; but 
shall be unable to participate in the Celebration, on account of ex- 
pected imperative engagements of my family and myself. With all 
my heart 1 wish the divine blessing, '•grace, mercy, and peace," for 



158 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

the members of the First Church, and for all the inhabitants of the 
good old town, without distinction. 

Very truly yours in Christian love, 

Oliver Stearns. 



25 Brimmer Street, Boston, Mass., Aug. 6, 1S81. 
My dear Mr. Lincoln, — I am sorry that absence has delayed 
my acknowledgment of the invitation to the Two Hundredth Anni- 
versary of the First Parish in Hingham, and especially sorry that I 
shall not be able to avail myself of the privilege. 

The history of the Old Church is interesting to all New Eng- 
enders ; but I feel a peculiar right to take such an interest, from my 
connection with a church founded so nearly at the same date, and 
which, though founded on principles opposed to those for which 
the Hingham Church stood, has long been side by side with it in 
the same Christian fellowship. 

Faithfully yours, 

Henry W. Foote. 



Bridgton, Aug. 8, 1S81. 
Dear Mr. Lincoln, — Please accept my sincere thanks for the 
kind invitation which I have received from you and the members 
of the Committee, who have done me the honor of asking me to be 
present at the Two Hundredth x\nniversary of the Meeting-house. 
The regret which I feel at not being able to be with you is some- 
what mitigated by the very present recollections of my recent visits 
to the venerable building in which it was my privilege and pleasure 
to preach ; and for whose future glory and usefulness I shall ever 
pray, as long as I am able to subscribe myself, to you and your 
church associates, 

As cordially yours, 

H. Bernard Carpenter. 
To Arthur Lincoln, Esq. 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX. 



THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE. 

The first house for public worship was erected 
by the first settlers of the town, probably within a 
short time after its settlement in 1635. It was 
situated on the main street, on a slight eminence, 
in front of the present site of the Derby Acad- 
emy. It was surrounded by a palisado, and sur- 
mounted by a belfry with a bell. Around it, upon 
the declivity of the hill, the dead were buried. 
It was undoubtedly, like the early dwellings, a 
rude structure, although the scanty records re- 
lating to it which remain, indicate that it wa^ 
not wholly devoid of ornament or of taste in its 
construction. 



162 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 



THE MINISTERS. 



I. PETER HOBART, educated at Magdalen College, Cam- 
bridge, England (graduated 1625) ; settled at Hingham, 
1635 '■> died Jan. 20, 1678-9. 

II. JOHN NORTON (H. C, 1671) ; ordained Colleague 
Pastor, Nov. 27, 1678; died Oct. 3, 1716. 

III. EBENEZER GAY (H. C, 1714) ; ordained June n, 

1 718; S.T.D., 1785 ; died March 8, 1787. 

IV. HENRY WARE (H. C, 1785); ordained October 24, 

1787; Hollis Professor of Divinity, H. C, 1805; S.T.D., 
1806; died July 12, 1845. 

V. JOSEPH RICHARDSON (D. C, 1802) ; ordained July 

2, 1806; died Sept. 25, 1871. 

VI. CALVIN LINCOLN ( H. C, 1S20) ; ordained at Fitch- 
burg, June 30, 1824; pastoral connection dissolved May 
5, 1855 ; inducted as Associate Pastor of this Parish, 
May 27, 1855; died Sept. 11, 1881. 

VII. EDWARD AUGUSTUS HORTON (U. of M.) ; ordained 
at Leominster, Oct. 1, 1868 ; pastoral connection dissolved 
Oct. 1, 1875 ; installed as Associate Pastor of this Parish, 
April 25, 1877; pastoral connection dissolved May 3, 
1880; installed as Pastor of the Second Church, Boston, 
May 24, 1880. 



APPENDIX. 163 



INVITATION. 



1681. 1881. 

THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM 

WILL OBSERVE THE 

TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 

Of the building of its "Meeting-house" by commemorative ser- 
vices on Monday, August 8, at 11 o'clock a.m. 

Mr. Charles Eliot Norton of Cambridge will deliver the 
address. 

The Parish cordially invites 



to attend the services. 



Arthur Lincoln, 
Quincy Bl( KM 1.1.. 
George Lini oln, 
Henry C. Harding, 



Committee 

on 
Invitations. 



HiNGHAM, July l8, iSSl. 



Please send a reply by August 1 (when a ticket will be sent on 
your acceptance). 



164 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 



INVITATION TO THE "OLD CHOIR." 



Hingham, July 20, 1 88 1. 

To 

The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the building of the 
"Old Meeting-house" in Hingham will be celebrated on Monday, 
Aug. 8, 1 88 1. 

The Committee on Music desire to represent the styles of sing- 
ing in the Meeting-house at various periods of its history, as 
follows, viz. : — 

1. Lining of the Hymn and singing by the Congregation. 

2. Singing by a Choir, with Instruments. 

3. Quartette Singing, with the Organ. 

In order to represent the second style mentioned, they request 
those who have sung or played in the choir to do so on this 
occasion. 

As a former member of the choir, you are cordially invited to 
attend a meeting for practice, at the Meeting-house, on Tuesday 
evening next, July 26, at 8 o'clock, and to take a hearty interest 
in the singing. 

There are no complete records showing what persons have sung 
in the choir, and the Committee may not have remembered all 
such after the lapse of many years. You are therefore earnestly 
requested to suggest to the Committee the names of any known by 
you to have been overlooked. 

Very truly yours, 

Francis H. Lincoln, 
William Fearing, 2d, 

Committee on Music. 



APPENDIX. 165 



ORDER OF EXERCISES. 



Eleven o'clock, A.M. 
I. ORGAN VOLUNTARY. 



II. TE DEUM IN 15 MINOR. {Buck.) 



III. ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

Mr. ARTHUR LINCOLN 



IV. INVOCATION. 
Rev. EDWARD A HORTON, Minister of the Second Church in Boston. 



V. ANTHEM. 

"BEFORE JI.IIOVAH'S AWFUL THRONE " — "Denmark: 
(To be sung by the " Old Choir,'' with Instruments.) 



VI. READING OF Till': SCRIPTURES. 

Rev. HENRY A. MILES, P. P., Minister of the Third Congregational 

Societv. 



VII. PSALM LXXXIV. — >; St. Martin's." 

Read by Rev. EDWARD C. HOOD, Minister of the Evangelical Congrega- 
tional Society. 
(To be lined off, and sung by the Congregation ) 
[For Psalm see page 22.] 



l66 THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 

VIII. PRAYER. 

Rev. CALVIN LINCOLN, the Minister. 



IX. RESPONSE. 



X. ADDRESS. 

Mr. CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. 



XI. HYMN — " Northfield." 

"OLD CHOIR." 



XII. POEM. 

Mr. RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 



XIII. HYMN-"OA/ Hundred. ' ' 

Read by Rev. HENRY M. DEAN, Minister of the First Baptist Society. 
(To be sung by the Congregation.) 



XIV. BENEDICTION. 

Rev. WILLIAM I. NICHOLS, Minister of the Second Parish. 



Two o'clock, P.M. 
I. ANTHEM — " Prepare ye the way." {Garrett.') 



II. PRAYER. 

Rev. JOSEPH OSGOOD, of Cohasset. 



APPENDIX. 167 



III. ADDRESSES. 

Rev EDWARD A. HORTON, ok Boston. I- EDWARD J. YOUNG, of 
Waltham. Hun. MARSHALL P. WILDER, of Boston. 



IV. ANTHEM — "Ode on Science." 

,D CHOIR." 



V. ADDRESSES. 

HlS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS, JOHN D. LONG, LL.D. 

II -.. ROBERT R. BISHOP, President of the Senate. 
Mr CHARLES F. ADAMS, Jr., of Quincy. 



VI. .MUSIC. 



VII. ADDRESSES. 

Rev JOSEPH OSGOOD, of Cohasset. Hon. GEORGE B. LORING, of Salem. 
Rev. EBEN FRANCIS, of Cambridge. 



VIII. HYMN— "Lenox." 

"OLD CHOIR." 



IX. ADDRESSES. 

Hon. THOMAS RL 1 U Boston. Rev. LEWIS B. BATES, of Boston. 

Mr. HOSEA H. LINCOLN, of Boston. 



X. HYMN— "America^ 

A Song for the Old Church." [AMES HUMPHREY WILDER 

(To be sung by the Congregation.) 

[For Hymn see page 147] 



XI. BENEDICTION. 

By the Minister. 



1 68 



THE FIRST PARISH IN HINGHAM. 



MEMBERS OF THE "OLD CHOIR." 



£ca&cr. 
LUTHER STEPHENSON, Sr. 



J>opranoj3. 



Mrs. Calvin A. Lincoln. 
Mrs. E. Waters Burr. 
Mrs. Alanson Crosby. 
Mrs. Starkes Whiton. 
Mrs. William Jones. 
Mrs. Loring Jacob. 



Mrs. Joseph C. Sprague. 
Miss Sarah A. Hobart. 
Miss Deborah B. Ripley. 
Miss Adeline Thomas. 
Miss Lizzie B. Cushing. 
Miss Ella W. Hobart. 



Mrs. Samuel G. Studley. 
Mrs. Sidney Cushing. 
Mrs. Edward R. Blanchard. 
Mrs. Benjamin Andrews. 
Mrs. Levi B. Ripley. 



Miss Lizzie B. Siders. 
Miss Helen Howard. 
Miss Sarah Cushing. 
Miss Mabel M. Hobart 
Miss Sara J. Lincoln. 



Israel Whitcomb. 
Albert Leavitt. 



tLenors. 

Joseph H. French. 
George Bayley. 
John M. Corbett. 



APPENDIX. 

$Jasscg. 

] Barker Whitcomb. William Fearing, 2d. 

Edmund Hobart. Thomas J Leavitt. 

John W. Peirce. Samuel (',. Bayli 

Charles Howard. Thomas Calx. 

Charles Sprague. Charles A. Lane. 

Josiah Sprague. Henry VV. Burditt. 

Loring Jacob. Abel Fearing. 



Instruments. 

Flute Sidney Sprague. 

Violin Clarence S. Birr. 

Clarinet Samuel Bronsdon. 

Viola William B. Fearing. 

Bass-Vioi David A. Hersey. 

Double Bass-Viol Joseph T. Sprague. 



169 



USHERS 

UNDER THE DIRECTION OF 
E. WATERS BURR. 

ELLERY C. Crocker. William R. Burr. 

Ernesi W. Lincoln. Frank M. Ripley. 

Stetson Foster. Edwin Clapp. 

Charles A. Lane Wallace Wiiiton. 

John O. Remington. Charles T. Burr. 

John C. Hollis. E. Bradley Loring. 



